Today when my friend turned on the radio in his car, the RJs were just moving on to the Q&A part of the program from a discussion on the phrase 'Rule of Thumb'. After returning from a friend's place, out of curiosity I just did a (re)search on the same and here's something I found about it's origin:
It is believed that English law allowed man to whip his wife with a switch as long as it is no thicker than his thumb...Uh huff!!
For centuries bits of body are being used in taking measurements and I thought the phrase originated when this part of hand, the thumb is used to estimate or measure things. I was astonished; so checked few other results from the million or so returned by Google and found that such a law never existed and it is a myth...Sigh!!
BTW here's an interesting usage of the phrase[1]:
Tailors' Rule of Thumb: A simple approximation that was used by tailors to determine the wrist, neck, and waist circumferences of a person through one single measurement of the circumference of that person's thumb. The rule states, typically, that twice the circumference of a person's thumb is the circumference of their wrist, twice the circumference of the wrist is the circumference of the neck, and twice around the neck is the person's waist.
[1]. Wikipedia.org
It is believed that English law allowed man to whip his wife with a switch as long as it is no thicker than his thumb...Uh huff!!
For centuries bits of body are being used in taking measurements and I thought the phrase originated when this part of hand, the thumb is used to estimate or measure things. I was astonished; so checked few other results from the million or so returned by Google and found that such a law never existed and it is a myth...Sigh!!
BTW here's an interesting usage of the phrase[1]:
Tailors' Rule of Thumb: A simple approximation that was used by tailors to determine the wrist, neck, and waist circumferences of a person through one single measurement of the circumference of that person's thumb. The rule states, typically, that twice the circumference of a person's thumb is the circumference of their wrist, twice the circumference of the wrist is the circumference of the neck, and twice around the neck is the person's waist.
[1]. Wikipedia.org
