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52-500: The Zero one infinity (ZOI) rule is a rule of thumb in software design proposed by early computing pioneer Willem van der Poel . It argues that arbitrary limits on the number of instances of a particular type of data or structure should not be allowed. Instead, an entity should either be forbidden entirely, only one should be allowed, or any number of them should be allowed. Although various factors outside that particular software could limit this number in practice, it should not be

104-475: A chestnut horse ' . This was an allusion to a fourteenth-century French morality poem, Roman de Fauvel , about a chestnut-coloured horse who corrupts men through duplicity. The phrase was reanalyzed in early Modern English by comparison to favour as early as 1510. Words need not completely disappear before their compounds are reanalyzed. The word shamefaced was originally shamefast . The original meaning of fast 'fixed in place' still exists, as in

156-480: A corn on the foot. The word comes from Old English ang- + nægel ' anguished nail, compressed spike ' , but the spelling and pronunciation were affected by folk etymology in the seventeenth century or earlier. Thereafter, the word came to be used for a tag of skin or torn cuticle near a fingernail or toenail. Several words in Medieval Latin were subject to folk etymology. For example,

208-479: 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 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

260-573: A change in the form or meaning. To disambiguate the usage of the term "folk/popular etymology", Ghil'ad Zuckermann proposes a clear-cut distinction between the derivational-only popular etymology (DOPE) and the generative popular etymology (GPE): the DOPE refers to a popular false etymology involving no neologization , and the GPE refers to neologization generated by a popular false etymology. Examples of words created or changed through folk etymology include

312-405: 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 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

364-579: 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 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

416-520: 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 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

468-426: 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 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

520-480: A manner appropriate to that perceived origin. This popular etymologizing has had a powerful influence on the forms which words take. Examples in English include crayfish or crawfish , which are not historically related to fish but come from Middle English crevis , cognate with French écrevisse . Likewise chaise lounge , from the original French chaise longue ("long chair"), has come to be associated with

572-563: 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, the connection to domestic violence was still being cited in some legal sources into

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624-503: A practical approximation. Historically, the width of the thumb, or "thumb's breadth", was used as the equivalent of an inch in 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,

676-553: 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 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

728-437: A similar manner include belfry (from berfrey ) by association with bell , female (from femelle ) by male , and penthouse (from apentis ) by house . The variant spelling of licorice as liquorice comes from the supposition that it has something to do with liquid. Anglo-Norman licoris (influenced by licor ' liquor ' ) and Late Latin liquirītia were respelled for similar reasons, though

780-401: 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 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

832-447: 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 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

884-475: A word or other form becomes obsolete, words or phrases containing the obsolete portion may be reanalyzed and changed. Some compound words from Old English were reanalyzed in Middle or Modern English when one of the constituent words fell out of use. Examples include bridegroom from Old English brydguma ' bride-man ' . The word gome ' man ' from Old English guma fell out of use during

936-496: Is hangmat . It was borrowed from Spanish hamaca (ultimately from Arawak amàca ) and altered by comparison with hangen and mat ' hanging mat ' . German Hängematte shares this folk etymology. Islambol , a folk etymology meaning 'Islam abounding', is one of the names of Istanbul used after the Ottoman conquest of 1453. An example from Persian is the word شطرنج shatranj 'chess', which

988-426: Is a productive process in historical linguistics , language change , and social interaction . Reanalysis of a word's history or original form can affect its spelling, pronunciation, or meaning. This is frequently seen in relation to loanwords or words that have become archaic or obsolete. Folk/popular etymology may also refer to a popular false belief about the etymology of a word or phrase that does not lead to

1040-417: Is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one through popular usage. The form or the meaning of an archaic, foreign, or otherwise unfamiliar word is reinterpreted as resembling more familiar words or morphemes . The term folk etymology is a loan translation from German Volksetymologie , coined by Ernst Förstemann in 1852. Folk etymology

1092-695: Is derived from the Sanskrit चतुरङ्ग chatur-anga ("four-army [game]"; 2nd century BCE), and after losing the u to syncope , became چترنگ chatrang in Middle Persian (6th century CE). Today it is sometimes factorized as sad ' hundred ' + ranj ' worry, mood ' , or ' a hundred worries ' . Some Indonesian feminists discourage usage of the term wanita ('woman') and replacing it with perempuan , since wanita itself has misogynistic roots. First, in Javanese , wanita

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1144-541: 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 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

1196-453: Is uncertain. By the late Middle Ages its meaning was extended to the holder of a university degree inferior to master or doctor. This was later re-spelled baccalaureus , probably reflecting a false derivation from bacca laurea ' laurel berry ' , alluding to the possible laurel crown of a poet or conqueror. In the fourteenth or fifteenth century, French scholars began to spell the verb savoir ' to know ' as sçavoir on

1248-462: Is unknown, but presumably humorous, since the dish contains no rabbit. In 1785 Francis Grose suggested in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue that the dish is "a Welch rare bit", though the word rarebit was not common prior to Grose's dictionary. Both versions of the name are in current use; individuals sometimes express strong opinions concerning which version is correct. When

1300-415: The English dialectal form sparrowgrass , originally from Greek ἀσπάραγος (" asparagus ") remade by analogy to the more familiar words sparrow and grass . When the alteration of an unfamiliar word is limited to a single person, it is known as an eggcorn . The technical term "folk etymology" refers to a change in the form of a word caused by erroneous popular suppositions about its etymology . Until

1352-595: 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 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

1404-508: The Zero-One-Infinity Principle was intended as a design principle for programming languages, and similar things, in order to keep them cognitively manageable. I formulated it in the early 70s, when I was working on programming language design and annoyed by all the arbitrary numbers that appeared in some of the languages of the day. I certainly have no argument against estimates, limits, or numbers in general! As you said,

1456-403: The academic development of comparative linguistics and description of laws underlying sound changes , the derivation of a word was mostly guess-work. Speculation about the original form of words in turn feeds back into the development of the word and thus becomes a part of a new etymology. Believing a word to have a certain origin, people begin to pronounce, spell, or otherwise use the word in

1508-469: The compound becomes obsolete. There are many examples of words borrowed from foreign languages, and subsequently changed by folk etymology. The spelling of many borrowed words reflects folk etymology. For example, andiron borrowed from Old French was variously spelled aundyre or aundiren in Middle English, but was altered by association with iron . Other Old French loans altered in

1560-632: The compounded words steadfast and colorfast , but by itself mainly in frozen expressions such as stuck fast , hold fast , and play fast and loose . The songbird wheatear or white-ear is a back-formation from Middle English whit-ers ' white arse ' , referring to the prominent white rump found in most species. Although both white and arse are common in Modern English, the folk etymology may be euphemism . Reanalysis of archaic or obsolete forms can lead to changes in meaning as well. The original meaning of hangnail referred to

1612-702: 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 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

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1664-400: 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 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

1716-467: The false belief it was derived from Latin scire ' to know ' . In fact it comes from sapere ' to be wise ' . The Italian word liocorno , meaning 'unicorn' derives from 13th-century lunicorno ( lo 'the' + unicorno 'unicorn'). Folk etymology based on lione 'lion' altered the spelling and pronunciation. Dialectal liofante 'elephant' was likewise altered from elefante by association with lione . The Dutch word for ' hammock '

1768-569: 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 the early 2000s. [REDACTED] The dictionary definition of rule of thumb at Wiktionary Folk etymology Folk etymology – also known as (generative) popular etymology , analogical reformation , (morphological) reanalysis and etymological reinterpretation –

1820-477: The letter s is the result of comparison with the synonym isle from Old French and ultimately as a Latinist borrowing of insula , though the Old French and Old English words are not historically related. In a similar way, the spelling of wormwood was likely affected by comparison with wood . The phrase curry favour , meaning to flatter, comes from Middle English curry favel ' groom

1872-526: 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 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

1924-444: The name comes from the fact that the trees bloom in spring, a time when circuit-riding preachers resume church services or when funeral services are carried out for people who died during the winter. A seemingly plausible but no less speculative etymology accounts for the form of Welsh rarebit , a dish made of cheese and toasted bread. The earliest known reference to the dish in 1725 called it Welsh rabbit . The origin of that name

1976-411: The orange tree ' , with the initial ⟨n⟩ of naranj understood as part of the article . Rebracketing in the opposite direction saw the Middle English a napron become an apron . In back-formation, a new word is created by removing elements from an existing word that are interpreted as affixes . For example, Italian pronuncia ' pronunciation, accent ' is derived from

2028-447: 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 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

2080-408: The problem is with arbitrary numbers. I don't think I used it in print before I wrote my 1983 PL book [ Principles of Programming Languages: Design, Evaluation, and Implementation ]. Dick Hamming encouraged me to organize it around principles (a la Kernighan & Plauger and Strunk & White ), and the Zero-One-Infinity Principle was one of the first. (FWIW, the name “Zero-One-Infinity Principle”

2132-402: The sixteenth century and the compound was eventually reanalyzed with the Modern English word groom ' male servant ' . A similar reanalysis caused sandblind , from Old English sāmblind ' half-blind ' with a once-common prefix sām- ' semi- ' , to be respelled as though it is related to sand . The word island derives from Old English igland . The modern spelling with

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2184-422: The software itself that puts a hard limit on the number of instances of the entity. Examples of this rule may be found in the structure of many file systems ' directories (also known as folders): Van der Poel confirmed that he was the originator of the rule, but Bruce MacLennan has also claimed authorship (in the form "The only reasonable numbers are zero, one and infinity."), writing in 2015 that: Of course,

2236-482: The term an additional meaning of "hopeless venture". Sometimes imaginative stories are created to account for the link between a borrowed word and its popularly assumed sources. The names of the serviceberry , service tree , and related plants, for instance, come from the Latin name sorbus . The plants were called syrfe in Old English, which eventually became service . Fanciful stories suggest that

2288-503: The ultimate origin of all three is Ancient Greek γλυκύρριζα glucúrrhiza ' sweet root ' . Reanalysis of loan words can affect their spelling, pronunciation, or meaning. The word cockroach , for example, was borrowed from Spanish cucaracha but was assimilated to the existing English words cock and roach . The phrase forlorn hope originally meant "storming party, body of skirmishers" from Dutch verloren hoop "lost troop". But confusion with English hope has given

2340-403: The verb pronunciare ' to pronounce, to utter ' and English edit derives from editor . Some cases of back-formation are based on folk etymology. In linguistic change caused by folk etymology, the form of a word changes so that it better matches its popular rationalisation. Typically this happens either to unanalysable foreign words or to compounds where the word underlying one part of

2392-405: The word widerdonum meaning 'reward' was borrowed from Old High German widarlōn ' repayment of a loan ' . The l   →   d alteration is due to confusion with Latin donum ' gift ' . Similarly, the word baceler or bacheler (related to modern English bachelor ) referred to a junior knight. It is attested from the eleventh century, though its ultimate origin

2444-457: The word lounge . Other types of language change caused by reanalysis of the structure of a word include rebracketing and back-formation . In rebracketing, users of the language change, misinterpret, or reinterpret the location of a boundary between words or morphemes . For example, the Old French word orenge ' orange tree ' comes from Arabic النَّرَنْج an-naranj '

2496-431: 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 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

2548-427: 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 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",

2600-416: Was inspired by George Gamow’s book, “One, Two, Three… Infinity,” which I read in grade school.) Rule of 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 was an actual legal rule spread. The error appeared in

2652-405: 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 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

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2704-416: Was not connected with the phrase rule of thumb until the 1970s. In the 1970s, through a misunderstanding of a metaphor, 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

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