IF just celebrated Women's Week so I wanted to share this you all in honor of that. Many times we use idioms and don't even know the origins of it. That doesn't mean that we mean it but sometimes the origin is so horrible and that we regret using it afterwards. I am not sure how many of you actually know the origins of "The Rule of the Thumb" so I wanted to share this with you all.
Many people say that the origin of this idiom dates way back before the invention of the thermometer. Brewers used to check the temperature by dipping their thumb in to find whether or not the water was at appropriate temperature for yeast. If it was too hot then the yeast would die and thus came into the being "The Rule of the Thumb."
It might be true but the true origins of this idiom date way back in Great Britain. I have a friend who's a strong feminist and she does researches on these things regularly. She did a lot of research on this idiom and truly the origins of it are atrocious.
Originally the term dates back to the medieval times when the diameter of the thum was the largest diameter of stick that was allowable for disciplining one's wife and that was "The Rule of the Thumb."
It was Great Britain's "Rule of the Thumb" law where a husband was legally allowed to punish his wife by hitting her with a stick that could not be larger than his thumb in diameter.
It is indeed horrible – I never knew about this a few years ago. She said she had to dig into old documents to get a clear picture of this because a lot of the documents weren't available for public use regarding this.
So, this is my request to all of you to never use "The Rule of the Thumb." I am not applying that anyone of us mean anything when we use it. I used to use it a lot too but that explains us one thing – For the precision and accuracy of our speech, we need to know the meanings/origins of idioms/slang/phrases we use everyday!
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