Where does the expression "rule of thumb" come from?

Answer 1

The expression rule of thumb has been recorded since 1692 and probably wasn’t new then. It meant then what it means now—some method or procedure that comes from practice or experience, without any formal basis. Some have tried to link it with brewing; in the days before thermometers, brewers were said to have gauged the temperature of the fermenting liquor with the thumb (just as mothers for generations have tested the temperature of the baby’s bath water with their elbows). This seems unlikely, as the thumb is not that sensitive and the range of temperatures for fermentation between too cool and too warm is quite small.

It is much more likely that it comes from the ancient use of bits of the body to make measurements. There were once many of these: the unit of the foot comes from pacing out dimensions; the distance from the tip of the nose to the outstretched fingers is about one yard; horse heights are still measured in hands (the width of the palm and closed thumb, now fixed at four inches); and so on. There was an old tailors’ axiom that “twice around the thumb is once around the wrist”, which turns up in Gulliver’s Travels. It’s most likely that the saying comes from the length of the first joint of the thumb, which is about an inch (I remember once seeing a carpenter actually make a rough measurement this way). So the phrase rule of thumb uses the word rule in the sense of ruler, not regulation, and directly refers to this method of measurement.

So where does beating your wife come in? Sharon Fenick wrote an article about its origins in the newsgroup alt.folklore.urban in 1996. She found that for more than two centuries there have been references in legal works to the idea that a man may legally beat his wife, provided that he used a stick no thicker than his thumb; but the references were always to what some people believed, not to established legal principle. The British common law had long held that it was legal for a man to chastise his wife in moderation, as one might a servant or child, but Sir William Blackstone wrote in his Commentaries on the Laws of England in 1765 that this principle was by then in decline. So far as I can discover nothing was ever laid down about how such discipline should be applied.

Ms Fenick traced the idea back to a pronouncement that was supposed to have been made in 1782 by a British judge, Sir Francis Buller; this led to a fiercely satirical cartoon by James Gillray that was published on 27 November that year, in which Buller was caricatured as Judge Thumb. (Buller was a brilliant lawyer, the youngest man ever to be appointed a judge in Britain, at 32, but he was widely considered hasty and prejudiced in his opinions.)

It might be that he never made the statement that rendered him so notorious. Edward Foss, in his Biographical Dictionary of the Judges of England of 1864 says that to Buller “is attributed the obnoxious and ungentlemanly dictum that a husband may beat his wife, so that the stick with which he administers the castigation is not thicker than his thumb”, but says he can’t find any evidence Buller said it. But the Dictionary of National Biography and other standard works say firmly he did, as did contemporary biographies.

However, it was only in 1976, so far as I can discover, that the traditional phrase rule of thumb became directly associated with this spurious legal maxim, through a bit of wordplay in a report that was misunderstood by readers.

It is extraordinary that we can so accurately pinpoint the moment at which this folk belief came into being. And how astonishing, too, that it should have survived more than two centuries to become part of the folklore of modern times.

Answer 2

Rule Of Thumb Origin

Answer 3

Take your Pick: The measurement of an inch is derived from the distance between the base of the thumbnail and the first joint. This is a plausible origin as the thumb is often used for rough measurement by carpenters, seamstresses, artists and many others. Pete's Wicked Trivia, promotional material for Pete's Wicked Ale, states that the phrase came from brewers who dipped their thumbs in the product to detemine that the beer wort had cooled to the proper temperature for adding yeast, before the advent of thermometers. The Russian Tzar Alexander II has been suggested as the creator of this term. In an apocryphal story he is said to have drawn the route of a railroad from St. Petersburg to Moscow, accidentally tracing his thumb. The engineers, nervous about disobeying his orders, laid the tracks with an unnecessary curve according to the line drawn. A technique for approximating the general direction of the wind involves wetting the thumb then raising it in the air. It is often claimed that the term originally referred to the maximum thickness of a stick with which it was permissible for a man to beat his wife. This explanation for the origin of the term was popularized in the opening of the 1999 movie The Boondock Saints. Caricature condemning BullerLinguist Michael Quinion, citing the research of Sharon Fenick, notes that there are some examples of a related usage historically — most notably with regard to a supposed pronouncement by a British judge, Sir Francis Buller. However, it is questionable whether Buller ever made such a pronouncement and there is even less evidence that he phrased it as a "rule of thumb"; the rumored statement was so unpopular that it caused him to be lambasted as "Judge Thumb" in a satirical James Gillray cartoon. According to Quinion, the term "Rule of Thumb" was first documented in English in 1692, long before Buller's reported pronouncement. The first known usage of the phrase "rule of thumb" in direct reference to domestic violence was in 1976, in the book Battered Wives by Del Martin.

Answer 4

The expression "rule of thumb" comes from an old rule that used to exist which said you could beat your wife with a stick as long as it was not thicker then your thumb.

Answer 5

The expression comes from the old days where a man was not allowed to beat his wife with anything larger than his thumb. Making it the rule of thumb.

Answer 6

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Where does the expression "rule of thumb" come from?

Answer 7

According to the modern day Bible, "Uncle John's Bathroom Reader",the answer to this question is quite simple. In Colonial times a man was aloud to hit his wife with a stick no larger than the size of his thumb.

Boy... times have really changed.

Answer 8

The ancient times, when the power barons did not know to sign.The thumb impression was counted as the law.

The barons were so smart that they made sure that onbody else dare use a thumb mark. His thumb mark was the final say in all matters.

In todays world also you will find many a politician who although uneducated, puts thumb marks, but the rule of the thumb continues.

Answer 9

Rule of thumb is derived from early England. It refers to the carpenters trade and the use of the tip of the thumb to the first joint as a unit of measurement.

Answer 10

Man, too slow with my Wikpedia posting.

So I'll make one up...

Rule of Thumb came from the 12th Century when the Earl of Thumb (AKA Tom Thumb) ruled the land with an iron thumb. The peasants were so afraid of him that they would use the statement whenever their children misbehaved (You better eat your asparagus because that is the Rule of Thumb!).

Answer 11

rule of thumb is in reference to when a man should only use a stick as large as his thumb to hit his wife