"Origins of words" by Susie Dent, Countdown 03/11/17 (rule of thumb)

I had a e-mail in from Dominic Wilson, who asked, where does the phrase "rule of thumb" originate? And there's a popular and really unpleasant story attached to this expression, which came about in around the 17th century, namely that it reffered to the law that allowed a husband to beat his wife, provided that the stick he used was no thicker that his thumb. And we do know around this time that men were allowed to punish his wives to a resonable degree. Women were seen as the weaker vessels, as being intellectually and phisically inferior, and in law, in fact, a married couple were seen as one entity in which the husband had all the rights and horrible punishments were arount at the time though, something called the scold's bridle, which was said to put on any wife who excessively nagged her husband and it was an incredibly barbarous thing which had a bit on it, sometimes the bit had spikes, that would pierce the tongue and the palate, so really pretty horrible. And I say "reasonable extent", as I say, that wasn't really explained in law, but thankfully there was a little bit of light in that one woman who was killed with a pestle, believe it or not, by her husband, was deemed finally to have been unlawfully killed and her husband was condemned for murder. So we do know that this was all around at the time, but thankfully, there was no such ruling allowing a husband to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. It's never been found in the law books, but the story did become urban myth, even at the time, so you can find lots of contemporary cartoons satirising the judge who was said to have been responsible, who was called Sir Francis Buller. He was quite draconian in his sentences, it has to be said, and he was much criticised by other judges at the time for being hasty and prejudiced. But, as I said, he didn't really , if you look at his history, pass this particular law, but in this case we should be grateful that the origin of the expression is much less colourful than that. It simply reffers to the use of the thumb for measuring things. It's a spit ans sawdust approximation of measurement, and in textile trade, we still have that, for example, so a thumb's breadthis the practiceof allowing a thumb in addition to each yard of cloth measured.