From Newsgroup: rec.music.dylan

Zod wrote:

Will Dockery wrote:

"Earl Browder" wrote in message

news:4c381c37-c066-4a68-be08-34f3c04ecc3a@googlegroups.com...

Will Dockery wrote:

"Michael Pendragon" wrote in message
news:4e279b72-7458-4417-92c4-19f66dcdb435@googlegroups.com...

Will Dockery wrote:

Michael Pendragon wrote:

Let's all talk about Bob
Dylan, Patti Smith, Lenny Cohen".

We can leave Dylan out for now, since you prefer it, but both Smith

and

Cohen were poets, published poets, long before they became involved

with

music:

So, Michael Pendragon and his ignorance about Leonard Cohen is long
standing, one error of his that seems as uncorrectable as Jim Senetto
and his apostrophe disability.

And so it goes.

https://pennyspoetry.wikia.com/wiki/Patti_Smith

"Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith (born December 30, 1946)[1] is an American >>>> > poet, singer-songwriter, and visual artist..."

https://pennyspoetry.wikia.com/wiki/Leonard_Cohen

"Leonard Norman Cohen, CC, GOQ (September 21, 1934 - November 7, 2016) >>>> > was
a Canadian poet, singer-songwriter, musician, and novelist. His work >>>> > often
explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal
relationships..."

I'm with Stuart on this one. Folk rock and poetry are entirely
different categories. You and your friends seem to think that
excluding
folkies from the title of "poet" constitutes some sort of negative, >>>> > > qualitative judgement. It is nothing of the sort. Bob Dylan is a >>>> > > highly influential folkie. He's not a good poet. He's not a bad
poet.
He's not a poet at all.

Everywhere but you says Dylan is a poet:

https://pennyspoetry.wikia.com/wiki/Bob_Dylan

"Bob Dylan (born May 24, 1941) is an American poet, singer-songwriter, >>>> > musician, and painter..."

Rule of Thumb:

If a song lyric can stand on its own, it's poetry.

If it can be sung in a nasally voice, it's a folk song.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You're an English expert, Michael...

Do you know why the phrase "rule of thumb" is offensive to a great
number
of
people?

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1998-04-17/news/1998107056_1_rule-of-thumb-phrase-rule-false-etymology

The misunderstood 'rule of thumb'
Misconception: Many feminists for years thought the phrase "rule of
thumb"
referred to British common law's tolerance of wife-beating.
Sun Journal, April 17, 1998|By Stephanie Shapiro | Stephanie Shapiro,SUN >>> STAFF

Sharon Fenick first heard the figure of speech "rule of thumb" cited as
a
sexist pejorative during her freshman year at Harvard seven years ago.

The phrase was invoked in a lecture as an example of domestic abuse
permitted by British common law. The rule of thumb, according to the
professor, was a law that allowed a man to beat his wife so long as the
rod
used was no thicker than his thumb. But over the centuries, the term had >>> evolved into vernacular for an "approximate measure."

"It sounded very believable to me," says the 24-year-old Fenick, now in
her
third year of law school at the University of Chicago. "I was having my
first contact with feminist thought and [the explanation] was very
impressive to me. It was one of those things I really remember that
spread
around. I can't remember when I found out it wasn't true."

Unlike Fenick, untold historians, feminists and legal experts are
unaware
that the folk etymology for "rule of thumb" is false. For them, the
notion
of a "rule of thumb" makes perfect sense, originating as it allegedly
does
from a legal system they see as misogynistic.

In January, wordsmith William Safire debunked "the rule of thumb's"
false
etymology in his New York Times Magazine column. The phrase had been
called
to his attention by the president of George Washington University, where >>> a
female student had denounced its use by an administrator remarking on
budget
problems in the student newspaper.

In gender- and women's-studies courses across the country, the phrase is >>> still cited as an example of unconscious acceptance and tacit condoning
of
sexist policy. A computer search for the use of "rule of thumb" and
"wife"
in the same newspaper sentence reveals many letters to the editor in
recent
years from women irate about the casual appearance of the figure of
speech
in news articles. In a televised news analysis about domestic violence
in
1994, even commentator Cokie Roberts noted the misconception.

The false etymology persists despite the Oxford English Dictionary
definition: "A method or procedure derived entirely from practice or
experience, without any basis in scientific knowledge; a roughly
practical
method." The OED dates the phrase's first reference to 1692.

In the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, "rule of thumb" is
additionally defined as a method by which brewers once tested the
temperature of a batch of beer: They dipped a thumb in the brew.

During her first year of law school, Fenick, a wordsmith herself, was
determined to unravel the history of the "rule of thumb." Did the phrase >>> stem from a specific rule? Was there such a rule? Even if there wasn't a >>> rule, did an infamous judge's ruling establish "thumbstick" guidelines
for
would-be wife beaters?

She discovered that while "rule of thumb" was not accepted law, there
was
evidence aplenty that the British legal system and the American legal
system
it inspired were unkind to women. "I found out that in the 1800s [wife
beating] really was a debatable proposition," she says.

Wife beating is acknowledged in Blackstone's "Commentaries," and many
court
rulings sanctioned the practice. But whether the "rule of thumb" was
accepted as law was a separate matter.

Fenick traced the earliest possible reference to the 17th century, when
one
Dr. Marmaduke Coghill, an Irish judge, held that a man who had beaten
his
wife "with such a switch as the one he held in his hand" was within his
matrimonial privilege.

In the 18th century a judge named Francis Buller, dubbed "Judge Thumb"
by
the famous caricaturist James Gillray, was said to have allowed that a
man
could beat his wife, as long as the punitive stick was no thicker than
his
thumb. (A witty countess was said to have asked the judge to measure her >>> husband's thumb exactly, so that she might know the precise extent of
his
privilege.)

Fenick also found three 19th-century cases in America that mention the
"rule
of thumb," including an 1868 ruling in North Carolina that "the
defendant
had a right to whip his wife with a switch no larger than his thumb."

Buller's "thumbstick" opinion and the three American rulings Fenick
found
were intriguing -- and damning -- but did not constitute definitive
proof
that the rule of thumb was derived from British common law.

As Fenick, encouraged by a law professor, considered publishing her
findings, she found that Henry Ansgar Kelly, a University of California
English professor, had beaten her to the punch. His "Rule of Thumb and
the
Folklaw of the Husband's Stick" appeared in the September 1994 Journal
of
Legal Education.

Kelly, much to Fenick's disappointment, had covered the same territory
as
she. (Although she proudly observes that his article overlooked the
earliest
reference to "rule of thumb" by Coghill.) Three and half years later,
Safire
would rely entirely on Kelly's article to make his case in his column.

Fenick's efforts were not in vain, however. In response to a query from
a
correspondent to the alt.folkore.urban newsgroup linked to the Urban
Legends
Web site, Fenick posted her article where it is now part of the site's
permanent archives. Since its inception, the site has expanded its
mission
from probing the genesis and spread of urban legends to "confirming or
disproving beliefs and facts of all kinds, including origin of
vernacular."

"Rule of thumb" and other figures of speech can work much the same way
that
urban legends do: They may appear mysteriously, spread spontaneously and >>> contain elements of humor or horror. And, like urban legends, a figure
of
speech may contain a grain of emotional, if not actual, truth.

Thus it was easy at first for Fenick and others to believe that the
"rule of
thumb" was founded in common law. Patricia A. Turner, a University of
California at Davis folklorist, well understands how a falsehood can
acquire
the mantle of truth.

In "I Heard it Through the Grapevine: Rumor in African-American
Culture,"
Turner examines the way allegations of forced birth control, corporate
collusion with the Ku Klux Klan, drug distribution targeted at urban
areas
and other anti-black conspiracy theories circulating in the
African-American
community are based on racist realities and serve as a form of
resistance
against white oppression.

The same theory can be applied to the rule of thumb, Turner says. A text >>> may
be proved to be inaccurate or false, but "if it reflects some deeper
truth
in society, it doesn't go away." The term "rule of thumb" may "not have
that
specific etymological origin, but men have dominated women in workplaces >>> and
in homes and in virtually every setting. It speaks to a deeper truth."

Students of women's history who want to research possibly apocryphal
ideas
are also at a disadvantage because they "don't have the paper trail that >>> more mainstream areas of academic discipline have," Turner says.
"Sometimes
it's more difficult to get to the bottom of something."

That said, Turner acknowledges that it is "very sloppy for an academic
to
pass on misinformation." Once a theory such as the inaccurate history of >>> the
"rule of thumb" has been debunked, it can backfire on those promoting
it,
she says. "If someone has read it who knows it is false, everything gets >>> discredited on that level. So based on one falsehood, a whole history
can be
challenged."

That is what concerned scholars and social critics say happened when
Christina Hoff Sommers debunked the "rule of thumb" in her 1994 book,
"Who
Stole Feminism? How Women have Betrayed Women." Sommers finds the
earliest
misuse of the phrase in a 1976 National Organization for Women report
and
uses it to bolster her case against domestic-violence statistics.

The feminist rush to brandish the "rule of thumb" as justification for
their
crusade, Turner suggests, may inadvertently have provided Sommers and
her
sympathizers with the ideal ammunition to discredit the same cause.

As for Fenick, she received a nice letter from Kelly, who learned RTC of >>> her
research after the Safire piece ran. She has written him back, and hopes >>> to
hear soon what he thinks about her Coghill reference.

Pub Date: 4/17/98

Quite an interesting think piece....

Agreed.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.music.dylan

General-Zod wrote:

Will Dockery wrote:

"Michael Pendragon" wrote in message
news:4e279b72-7458-4417-92c4-19f66dcdb435@googlegroups.com...

Will Dockery wrote:

Michael Pendragon wrote:

Let's all talk about Bob
Dylan, Patti Smith, Lenny Cohen".

We can leave Dylan out for now, since you prefer it, but both Smith >>>>> and
Cohen were poets, published poets, long before they became involved >>>>> with
music:

So, Michael Pendragon and his ignorance about Leonard Cohen is long
standing, one error of his that seems as uncorrectable as Jim Senetto
and his apostrophe disability.

And so it goes.

https://pennyspoetry.wikia.com/wiki/Patti_Smith

"Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith (born December 30, 1946)[1] is an American >>>>> > poet, singer-songwriter, and visual artist..."

https://pennyspoetry.wikia.com/wiki/Leonard_Cohen

"Leonard Norman Cohen, CC, GOQ (September 21, 1934 - November 7, 2016) >>>>> > was
a Canadian poet, singer-songwriter, musician, and novelist. His work >>>>> > often
explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal
relationships..."

I'm with Stuart on this one. Folk rock and poetry are entirely
different categories. You and your friends seem to think that
excluding
folkies from the title of "poet" constitutes some sort of negative, >>>>> > > qualitative judgement. It is nothing of the sort. Bob Dylan is a >>>>> > > highly influential folkie. He's not a good poet. He's not a bad >>>>> > > poet.
He's not a poet at all.

Everywhere but you says Dylan is a poet:

https://pennyspoetry.wikia.com/wiki/Bob_Dylan

"Bob Dylan (born May 24, 1941) is an American poet, singer-songwriter, >>>>> > musician, and painter..."

Rule of Thumb:

If a song lyric can stand on its own, it's poetry.

If it can be sung in a nasally voice, it's a folk song.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You're an English expert, Michael...

Do you know why the phrase "rule of thumb" is offensive to a great
number
of
people?

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1998-04-17/news/1998107056_1_rule-of-thumb-phrase-rule-false-etymology

The misunderstood 'rule of thumb'
Misconception: Many feminists for years thought the phrase "rule of
thumb"
referred to British common law's tolerance of wife-beating.
Sun Journal, April 17, 1998|By Stephanie Shapiro | Stephanie Shapiro,SUN >>>> STAFF

Sharon Fenick first heard the figure of speech "rule of thumb" cited as >>>> a
sexist pejorative during her freshman year at Harvard seven years ago.

The phrase was invoked in a lecture as an example of domestic abuse
permitted by British common law. The rule of thumb, according to the
professor, was a law that allowed a man to beat his wife so long as the >>>> rod
used was no thicker than his thumb. But over the centuries, the term had >>>> evolved into vernacular for an "approximate measure."

"It sounded very believable to me," says the 24-year-old Fenick, now in >>>> her
third year of law school at the University of Chicago. "I was having my >>>> first contact with feminist thought and [the explanation] was very
impressive to me. It was one of those things I really remember that
spread
around. I can't remember when I found out it wasn't true."

Unlike Fenick, untold historians, feminists and legal experts are
unaware
that the folk etymology for "rule of thumb" is false. For them, the
notion
of a "rule of thumb" makes perfect sense, originating as it allegedly
does
from a legal system they see as misogynistic.

In January, wordsmith William Safire debunked "the rule of thumb's"
false
etymology in his New York Times Magazine column. The phrase had been
called
to his attention by the president of George Washington University, where >>>> a
female student had denounced its use by an administrator remarking on
budget
problems in the student newspaper.

In gender- and women's-studies courses across the country, the phrase is >>>> still cited as an example of unconscious acceptance and tacit condoning >>>> of
sexist policy. A computer search for the use of "rule of thumb" and
"wife"
in the same newspaper sentence reveals many letters to the editor in
recent
years from women irate about the casual appearance of the figure of
speech
in news articles. In a televised news analysis about domestic violence >>>> in
1994, even commentator Cokie Roberts noted the misconception.

The false etymology persists despite the Oxford English Dictionary
definition: "A method or procedure derived entirely from practice or
experience, without any basis in scientific knowledge; a roughly
practical
method." The OED dates the phrase's first reference to 1692.

In the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, "rule of thumb" is
additionally defined as a method by which brewers once tested the
temperature of a batch of beer: They dipped a thumb in the brew.

During her first year of law school, Fenick, a wordsmith herself, was
determined to unravel the history of the "rule of thumb." Did the phrase >>>> stem from a specific rule? Was there such a rule? Even if there wasn't a >>>> rule, did an infamous judge's ruling establish "thumbstick" guidelines >>>> for
would-be wife beaters?

She discovered that while "rule of thumb" was not accepted law, there
was
evidence aplenty that the British legal system and the American legal
system
it inspired were unkind to women. "I found out that in the 1800s [wife >>>> beating] really was a debatable proposition," she says.

Wife beating is acknowledged in Blackstone's "Commentaries," and many
court
rulings sanctioned the practice. But whether the "rule of thumb" was
accepted as law was a separate matter.

Fenick traced the earliest possible reference to the 17th century, when >>>> one
Dr. Marmaduke Coghill, an Irish judge, held that a man who had beaten
his
wife "with such a switch as the one he held in his hand" was within his >>>> matrimonial privilege.

In the 18th century a judge named Francis Buller, dubbed "Judge Thumb" >>>> by
the famous caricaturist James Gillray, was said to have allowed that a >>>> man
could beat his wife, as long as the punitive stick was no thicker than >>>> his
thumb. (A witty countess was said to have asked the judge to measure her >>>> husband's thumb exactly, so that she might know the precise extent of
his
privilege.)

Fenick also found three 19th-century cases in America that mention the >>>> "rule
of thumb," including an 1868 ruling in North Carolina that "the
defendant
had a right to whip his wife with a switch no larger than his thumb."

Buller's "thumbstick" opinion and the three American rulings Fenick
found
were intriguing -- and damning -- but did not constitute definitive
proof
that the rule of thumb was derived from British common law.

As Fenick, encouraged by a law professor, considered publishing her
findings, she found that Henry Ansgar Kelly, a University of California >>>> English professor, had beaten her to the punch. His "Rule of Thumb and >>>> the
Folklaw of the Husband's Stick" appeared in the September 1994 Journal >>>> of
Legal Education.

Kelly, much to Fenick's disappointment, had covered the same territory >>>> as
she. (Although she proudly observes that his article overlooked the
earliest
reference to "rule of thumb" by Coghill.) Three and half years later,
Safire
would rely entirely on Kelly's article to make his case in his column.

Fenick's efforts were not in vain, however. In response to a query from >>>> a
correspondent to the alt.folkore.urban newsgroup linked to the Urban
Legends
Web site, Fenick posted her article where it is now part of the site's >>>> permanent archives. Since its inception, the site has expanded its
mission
from probing the genesis and spread of urban legends to "confirming or >>>> disproving beliefs and facts of all kinds, including origin of
vernacular."

"Rule of thumb" and other figures of speech can work much the same way >>>> that
urban legends do: They may appear mysteriously, spread spontaneously and >>>> contain elements of humor or horror. And, like urban legends, a figure >>>> of
speech may contain a grain of emotional, if not actual, truth.

Thus it was easy at first for Fenick and others to believe that the
"rule of
thumb" was founded in common law. Patricia A. Turner, a University of
California at Davis folklorist, well understands how a falsehood can
acquire
the mantle of truth.

In "I Heard it Through the Grapevine: Rumor in African-American
Culture,"
Turner examines the way allegations of forced birth control, corporate >>>> collusion with the Ku Klux Klan, drug distribution targeted at urban
areas
and other anti-black conspiracy theories circulating in the
African-American
community are based on racist realities and serve as a form of
resistance
against white oppression.

The same theory can be applied to the rule of thumb, Turner says. A text >>>> may
be proved to be inaccurate or false, but "if it reflects some deeper
truth
in society, it doesn't go away." The term "rule of thumb" may "not have >>>> that
specific etymological origin, but men have dominated women in workplaces >>>> and
in homes and in virtually every setting. It speaks to a deeper truth."

Students of women's history who want to research possibly apocryphal
ideas
are also at a disadvantage because they "don't have the paper trail that >>>> more mainstream areas of academic discipline have," Turner says.
"Sometimes
it's more difficult to get to the bottom of something."

That said, Turner acknowledges that it is "very sloppy for an academic >>>> to
pass on misinformation." Once a theory such as the inaccurate history of >>>> the
"rule of thumb" has been debunked, it can backfire on those promoting
it,
she says. "If someone has read it who knows it is false, everything gets >>>> discredited on that level. So based on one falsehood, a whole history
can be
challenged."

That is what concerned scholars and social critics say happened when
Christina Hoff Sommers debunked the "rule of thumb" in her 1994 book,
"Who
Stole Feminism? How Women have Betrayed Women." Sommers finds the
earliest
misuse of the phrase in a 1976 National Organization for Women report
and
uses it to bolster her case against domestic-violence statistics.

The feminist rush to brandish the "rule of thumb" as justification for >>>> their
crusade, Turner suggests, may inadvertently have provided Sommers and
her
sympathizers with the ideal ammunition to discredit the same cause.

As for Fenick, she received a nice letter from Kelly, who learned RTC of >>>> her
research after the Safire piece ran. She has written him back, and hopes >>>> to
hear soon what he thinks about her Coghill reference.

Pub Date: 4/17/98

--------

Good read, a classic.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2