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36-630: Enchanted Mesa is a sandstone butte in Cibola County , New Mexico, United States, about 2.5 miles (4.0 km) northeast of the pueblo of Acoma . It is called Mesa Encantada in Spanish and Katzimo or Kadzima in Keresan . Acoma tradition says that Enchanted Mesa was the home of the Acoma people until a severe storm and landslide destroyed the only approach. There are no longer any ruins on

72-566: A common misconception arose that the phrase rule of thumb was related to legally condoned wife beating. A modern folk etymology relates the phrase to domestic violence via an alleged rule under English common law which permitted wife-beating provided that the implement used was a rod or stick no thicker than a man's thumb. Wife-beating has been officially outlawed in England and the United States for centuries, but enforcement of

108-484: A husband had the right to whip his wife, provided that he used a switch no larger than his thumb, is not the law in North Carolina". These latter two cases were cited by the legal scholar Beirne Stedman when he wrote in a 1917 law review article that an "old common law rule" had permitted a husband to use "moderate personal chastisement on his wife" so long as he used "a switch no larger than his thumb". By

144-448: A later 1897 expedition he reported evidence of occupation. Although the main ruins had been washed over the edge by centuries of thunderstorms, he found plenty of arrow points, stone tools, beads and pottery fragments lodged in crevices. On 18 November 1974, an Acoma police officer indicated that he had seen a UFO over Enchanted Mesa. Over the next several days, other officers reported "a red light, faster than any aircraft". A helicopter

180-580: A man may beat his wife with a stick no wider than his thumb. Despite there being no record that Buller ever said this, the rumor produced numerous jokes and satirical cartoons at his expense, with Buller being ridiculed as "Judge Thumb". English jurist Sir William Blackstone wrote in his Commentaries on the Laws of England of an "old law" that once allowed "moderate" beatings by husbands, but he did not mention thumbs or any specific implements. Wife-beating has been officially outlawed for centuries in England and

216-453: A right to whip his wife. And if he had, it is not easily seen how the thumb is the standard of size for the instrument which he may use, as some of the old authorities have said [...] The standard is the effect produced , and not the manner of producing it, or the instrument used. In 1873, also in North Carolina, the judge in State v. Oliver ruled, "We assume that the old doctrine that

252-585: A small, relatively flat top; buttes are smaller landforms than mesas , plateaus , and tablelands . The word butte comes from the French word butte , meaning knoll (but of any size); its use is prevalent in the Western United States , including the southwest where mesa ( Spanish for "table") is used for the larger landform. Due to their distinctive shapes, buttes are frequently landmarks in plains and mountainous areas. To differentiate

288-474: A whip or stick no wider than the judge's thumb. In a later case in North Carolina ( State v. Rhodes , 1868), the defendant was found to have struck his wife "with a switch about the size of this fingers"; the judge found the man not guilty due to the switch being smaller than a thumb. The judgment was upheld by the state supreme court, although the later judge stated: Nor is it true that a husband has

324-550: Is Thumb Butte , which overlooks the city of Prescott and is the most prominent and distinctive geologic landmark in the vicinity. The Devils Tower in northeastern Wyoming is a laccolithic butte composed of igneous rock rather than sandstone , limestone or other sedimentary rocks . The term butte is sometimes applied more broadly to isolated, steep-sided hills with pointed or craggy, rather than flat, tops. Three notable formations that are either named butte or may be considered buttes even though they do not conform to

360-469: Is also found in Sir William Hope's The Compleat Fencing Master (1692): "What he doth, he doth by rule of Thumb, and not by Art ." James Kelly's The Complete Collection of Scottish Proverbs , 1721, includes: "No Rule so good as Rule of Thumb, if it hit", meaning a practical approximation. Historically, the width of the thumb, or "thumb's breadth", was used as the equivalent of an inch in

396-518: The New York Times Book Review , described it as "one of the most persistent myths of political correctness". During the 1990s, several authors wrote about the false etymology of rule of thumb , including English professor Henry Ansgar Kelly and conservative social critic Christina Hoff Sommers , who described its origin in a misunderstanding of Blackstone's commentary. Nonetheless, the myth persisted in some legal sources into

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432-707: The Sutter Buttes in California . In many cases, buttes have been given other names that do not use the word butte , for example, Courthouse Rock , Nebraska. Also, some large hills that are technically not buttes have names using the word, examples of which are Kamiak Butte , Chelan Butte and Steptoe Butte in Washington state . Rule of thumb In English , the phrase rule of thumb refers to an approximate method for doing something, based on practical experience rather than theory. This usage of

468-691: The "rule of thumb" was soon mentioned in a number of law journals. The myth was repeated in a 1982 report by the United States Commission on Civil Rights on domestic abuse titled "Under the Rule of Thumb", as well as a later United States Senate report on the Violence Against Women Act . In the late 20th century, some efforts were made to discourage the phrase rule of thumb , which was seen as taboo owing to this false origin. Patricia T. O'Conner , former editor of

504-520: The "stone ladder", leaving only sheer rock faces all the way around the butte. Legend has it that three old women and a young boy had been left in the village, but they could not get down, nor could anyone else get back to the village. A giant thunderbird swooped down and scooped up the four and carried them to the valley floor. The Acoma people abandoned Enchanted Mesa and moved to White Rock Mesa, now called Acoma. In 1897, Professor William Libbey from Princeton University climbed Enchanted Mesa to disprove

540-426: The 1970s. In the 20th century, public concern with the problem of domestic violence declined at first, and then re-emerged along with the resurgent feminist movement in the 1970s. The first recorded link between wife-beating and the phrase rule of thumb appeared in 1976, in a report on domestic violence by women's-rights advocate Del Martin : For instance, the common-law doctrine had been modified to allow

576-398: The United States, but continued in practice; several 19th-century American court rulings referred to an "ancient doctrine" that the judges believed had allowed husbands to physically punish their wives using implements no thicker than their thumbs. However, this belief was not connected with the phrase rule of thumb until the 1970s. In the 1970s, through a misunderstanding of a metaphor,

612-562: The cloth trade; similar expressions existed in Latin and French as well. The thumb has also been used in brewing beer, to gauge the heat of the brewing vat. Ebenezer Cobham Brewer writes that rule of thumb means a "rough measurement". He says that "Ladies often measure yard lengths by their thumb. Indeed, the expression 'sixteen nails make a yard' seems to point to the thumb-nail as a standard" and that "Countrymen always measure by their thumb." According to Phrasefinder , "The phrase joins

648-450: The connection to domestic violence was still being cited in some legal sources into the early 2000s. The exact origin of the phrase is uncertain. Its earliest (1685) appearance in print comes from a posthumously published collection of sermons by Scottish preacher James Durham : "Many profest Christians are like to foolish builders, who build by guess, and by rule of thumb (as we use to speak), and not by Square and Rule ." The phrase

684-504: The existence of ruins. His team used a cannon to shoot a rope over the end of the butte and using a pulley pulled himself up in a marine life-saving chair. Libbey and a newspaperman climbed to the top, spent two to three hours exploring, and returned empty-handed. Libbey announced that he had seen no ruins or artifacts, saying "Romantic Indian legend can never stand the acid test of scientific investigation." Self-educated archaeologist Frederick Webb Hodge did not take Libbey's word for it. On

720-412: The fissure, but it assured their safety. Into these holes were placed stout lengths of wood, the 'rungs' of the ladder. Today, this is still the only means of climbing access to the top of the mesa. Their fields, and the springs that were their water source, were in the valley. In the summer, the entire village would descend into the valley to tend the crops. One afternoon a severe thunderstorm washed away

756-407: The flat top. The butte is 430 ft (130 m) high, 1,250 ft (380 m) long and only 400 ft (120 m) ft wide, at its widest. The elevation at the top is 6,643 ft (2,025 m). In 1892, when Charles F. Lummis was visiting Acoma he listened to the old Indian governor, Martín Valle, who told the story of how the Acoma people used to live on Enchanted Mesa. Their access to

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792-646: The formal geographer's rule are Scotts Bluff in Nebraska which is a collection of five bluffs, Crested Butte , which is a 12,168 ft (3,709 m) mountain in Colorado , and Elephant Butte , which is now an island in Elephant Butte Reservoir in New Mexico . Among the well-known non-flat-topped buttes in the United States are Bear Butte , South Dakota , Black Butte , Oregon , and

828-481: The husband 'the right to whip his wife, provided that he used a switch no bigger than his thumb'—a rule of thumb, so to speak. While Martin appears to have meant the phrase rule of thumb only as a figure of speech , some feminist writers treated it as a literal reference to an earlier law. The following year, a book on battered women stated: One of the reasons nineteenth century British wives were dealt with so harshly by their husbands and by their legal system

864-469: The judges believed had once allowed wife-beating with an implement smaller than a thumb. None of these courts referred to such a doctrine as a rule of thumb or endorsed such a rule, but all permitted some degree of wife-beating so long as it did not result in serious injury. An 1824 court ruling in Mississippi stated that a man was entitled to enforce "domestic discipline" by striking his wife with

900-410: The late 19th century, most American states had outlawed wife-beating; some had severe penalties such as forty lashes or imprisonment for offenders. Although it was commonly believed in parts of the United States that a man was legally permitted to beat his wife with a stick no wider than his thumb, that belief did not have any connection with the phrase rule of thumb until a misunderstanding arose in

936-493: The law was inconsistent, and wife-beating did continue. However, a rule of thumb permitting wife-beating was never codified in law. English jurist William Blackstone wrote in the late 1700s in his Commentaries on the Laws of England that, by an "old law", a husband had formerly been justified in using "moderate correction" against his wife but was barred from inflicting serious violence; Blackstone did not mention either thumbs or sticks. According to Blackstone, this custom

972-414: The phrase can be traced back to the 17th century and has been associated with various trades where quantities were measured by comparison to the width or length of a thumb . The phrase rule of thumb first became associated with domestic abuse in the late 1970s, when an author mentioned the idiom in an article but did not say that there was any such legal rule. After this, an incorrect belief that there

1008-675: The top is further eroded by abrasion and weathering, the excess material that falls off adds to the scree or talus slope around the base. On a much smaller scale, the same process forms hoodoos . The Mitten Buttes of Monument Valley in the Utah – Arizona state line are two of the most distinctive and widely recognized buttes. Monument Valley and the Mittens provided backgrounds in the scenes of many western-themed films , including seven movies directed by John Ford . Another very well-known and frequently photographed butte in northern Arizona

1044-405: The top was on the southern side where a large piece of the butte was said to have spalled off and formed a ramp, a "stone ladder", up to the top. In reality, access was by climbing a ladder in a narrow fissure. Evidence of holes carved into the sandstone on either side of the fissure can be seen, located in the horseshoe shaped bowl at the southern end. The early inhabitants had a precipitous climb up

1080-479: The two landforms, geographers use the rule of thumb that a mesa has a top that is wider than its height, while a butte has a top that is narrower than its height. Buttes form by weathering and erosion when hard caprock overlies a layer of less resistant rock that is eventually worn away. The harder rock on top of the butte resists erosion. The caprock provides protection for the less resistant rock below from wind abrasion which leaves it standing isolated. As

1116-422: The whole nine yards as one that probably derives from some form of measurement but which is unlikely ever to be definitively pinned down." A modern folk etymology holds that the phrase is derived from the maximum width of a stick allowed for wife-beating under English common law, but no such law ever existed. This belief may have originated in a rumored statement by 18th-century judge Sir Francis Buller that

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1152-407: Was an actual legal rule spread. The error appeared in a number of law journals, and the United States Commission on Civil Rights published a report on domestic abuse titled "Under the Rule of Thumb" in 1982. Some efforts were made to discourage the phrase, which was seen as taboo owing to this false origin. During the 1990s, several authors correctly identified the spurious folk etymology ; however,

1188-534: Was dispatched to the top with the governor of the pueblo and a police officer, but no direct evidence of a UFO was found. The massive cliffs are formed by the Zuni Sandstone and the butte is topped by the Dakota Sandstone . Butte This is an accepted version of this page In geomorphology , a butte ( / b juː t / ) is an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and

1224-439: Was in doubt by the late 1600s, and a woman was allowed "security of the peace" against an abusive husband. Twentieth-century legal scholar William L. Prosser wrote that there was "probably no truth to the legend" that a husband was allowed to beat his wife "with a stick no thicker than his thumb". The association between the thumb and implements of domestic violence can be traced to 1782, when English judge Sir Francis Buller

1260-427: Was ridiculed for purportedly stating that a husband could beat his wife, provided that he used a stick no wider than his thumb. There is no record of Buller making such a statement, but the rumor generated much satirical press, with Buller being mocked as "Judge Thumb" in published jokes and cartoons. In the following century, several court rulings in the United States referred to a supposed common-law doctrine which

1296-481: Was the 'rule of thumb'. Included in the British Common Law was a section regulating wifebeating [...] The new law stipulated that the reasonable instrument be only 'a rod not thicker than his thumb.' In other words, wifebeating was legal. Despite this erroneous reading of the common law (which is a set of judicial principles rather than a written law with individual sections) the spurious legal doctrine of

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