I wanted to post quickly about this:
I went to Chili's (which actually should be Chile's, since they have a chile pepper for their little logo - and yes, I do believe chile pepper is with an "e," not an "i") with Cuddy and her brother and her bro's girlfriend the other night. I opened the menu, and it had a little blurb about how before thermometers were invented, beer brewers would dip their thumb into the wort (the name for unfermented beer) to check for the right temperature to add the yeast. It claimed, "That's where the phrase 'Rule of Thumb' comes from."
And I haven't checked this out, but I do believe they're wrong. I'm not trying to offend anyone here, and I apologize if I inadvertently do, but I believe the phrase "rule of thumb" comes from when there was a law on the books that husbands weren't allowed to beat their wives with canes that were thicker than their thumb. It's an offensive phrase. And I don't know where the hell Chile's -- I mean, Chili's came up with that.
I had to write that down because I was going through old posts and read about how Dennis was wondering where the phrase "cold turkey" came from, and I found out it has many different explanations and origins.
Rule of thumb relating to brewing, my ass!
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4 comments:
I heard the same thing you did Erin. Scarily enough I think the whole "beat your wife" origin is true.
I thought it pertained to thumb wrestling. Like the first rule of thumb is don't talk about thumb wrestling.
I like Matt's explanation.
I actually looked into it briefly after I posted, and Erik might be correct - some carpenters were just so damn good at what they did that they measured stuff by their thumb instead of using rulers.
I also read lots of stuff about the whole wife-beating folklore, and there are court cases from like 1913 that actually make reference to "common law" and the "rule of thumb," but there was no actual definitive evidence suggesting that there was ever actually a rule of thumb common law; just court cases that assumed it was true. Strange...
Did I just break the first rule of thumb [wrestling]?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thumb
Something tells me at a conference room at Chili's headquarters, some lawyers and some marketing drones got together and created what you saw on your menu.
That said, you should sue Chili's for Brewerly Slander.
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