Sometimes a quotation just gets lost in translation

At the Decker Communications blog on April 27, 2017 there was a post by Ben Decker about feedback titled Iron Sharpens Iron. The King James Bible version of Verse 17 from Chapter 27 in the Book of Proverbs says:

“Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.”

This verse typically is interpreted as being positive. For example, a web page at Got Questions.org titled What does it mean that iron sharpens iron? says:

“There is mutual benefit in the rubbing of two iron blades together; the edges become sharper, making the knives more efficient in their task to cut and slice.”  

Our common experience is that to sharpen an edge you use a tool like a file or a whetstone to remove material. We might picture that one of those ‘blades’ was a steel file used to hand sharpen the edge of a tool such as a Vermont farmer’s scythe, as is shown above in an image from 1937. The Wikipedia article on scythes says they first appeared in about 500 B.C. Scythes might not have been around when the Book of Proverbs was written, but other edged tools like knives or swords were.

That Got Questions page refers to a 1995 book by Howard and William Hendricks titled As Iron Sharpens Iron - building character in a mentoring relationship. On page 18 it explains:

“The Bible puts it this way: ‘As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.’ (Proverbs 27:17). Have you been sharpened against the whetstone of another man’s wisdom and character.”

I found a May 21, 2016 blog post by Justin Taylor at The Gospel Coalition titled What If “Iron Sharpening Iron” in the Book of Proverbs is actually Something to Avoid? He referred to a magazine article by Ronald L. Giese, Jr. titled “Iron Sharpens Iron” as a Negative Image: Challenging the Common Interpretation of Proverbs 27:17 that appeared in the Journal of Biblical Literature, Spring 2016, pages 61 to 76 (Vol. 135, No. 1). Dr. Giese concluded:

“The meaning of the verse is therefore along these lines: Just as a hard iron hammer pounds soft iron into something sharp, ready for battle, in the same way a man causes his neighbor to go on the attack (i.e., have a ‘sharp face’).”

If we assume that the Bible is referring to wrought iron, I agree with Dr. Giese that the typical positive interpretation is wrong. He notes that there weren’t iron files back then, so the rubbing interpretation is not valid. But there is one more important detail to complete the meaning for that verse.

Wrought iron doesn’t behave like steel. Steel contains enough carbon that it can be heat-treated to produce hard iron carbide particles. Wrought iron is low carbon iron (plus slag particles), without enough carbon to harden it like steel.

The only way to strengthen (or harden) wrought iron is by work hardening. That means permanently deforming it at room temperature, typically by hammering on the edge supported by an anvil (a process called peening). The Wikipedia article on swords notes this is the same method previously used for bronze swords. You don’t remove material – you just change its shape, which increases its strength.

There is a section by Michael Bussell on wrought iron in the Construction Materials Reference Book, which I found at Google Books. Table 6.8 says that wrought iron has an ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of 53.1 ksi in the hot rolled condition and increases to 86.1 ksi in the cold drawn condition. Similarly, wire in the hot rolled condition has a UTS of 53.1 ksi, versus 92.1 ksi in the cold drawn condition.  

Wikipedia says softer European scythes still are peened. What “iron sharpens iron” really means is likely as shown above for peening a scythe blade, a 2014 image from Gilles San Martin. You also can watch the process in an eight-minute YouTube video by Botan Anderson titled Zen and the art of peening a scythe blade. 

Writing this post was interesting. I haven’t looked up information about the behavior of wrought iron for ~25 years and that was the only time in my consulting career. It was back when I worked in Columbus, Ohio. After the 1991 fire at Adelbert Hall, a civil engineer I worked with was reviewing documents regarding rebuilding that included measurements of the strength of wrought iron structural beams. He asked me to check if there were any ASTM standards, like those he was used to seeing for structural steels. I finally found a printed copy of the old ASTM standard on the top floor of the main library at Ohio State University. To locate it, I had to look in their old card catalog rather than the current computerized one.  

What is the second-worst acronym ever?

Last night I was listening to BBC radio coverage about results from the snap election in the UK, where Conservatives did not secure a majority in Parliament. They were looking at a political deal with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland. The BBC spelled out the three letters D-U-P rather than pronouncing the acronym as a word that would sound like dupe - for which the Oxford Dictionary definitions are:

Verb - deceive; trick. Noun - a victim of deception.  

There is a web site for the Democratic Unionist Party at mydup.com. By the way, Wikipedia says DUP also is an acronym for Dances of Universal Peace and Daughters of Utah Pioneers.

On April 8, 2016 I blogged about What’s the worst acronym ever? It was ASSOL for the Antonin Scalia School of Law (at George Mason University) which thankfully was renamed to ASLS - the Antonin Scalia Law School.

The image was reworked from an 1895 Puck magazine cover of John Bull’s dilemma at the Library of Congress.

Women, public speaking, and fear

On June 8, 2017 at both the Public Speaking and Public Speaking Network groups on LinkedIn Charles Crawford posted under the title Public Speaking: Are Men and Women Different? with a link to his November 19, 2016 web article titled Women and Public Speaking.

In that article Mr. Crawford stated his view:

“….Fear, unease, uncertainty, nerves about public speaking affect men and women alike.”

Quantitatively that is absolute rubbish. Of course men and women are different! The fear monster (shown above) looms larger for women. More women than men fear public speaking, and also women fear public speaking more than men.

Just look at results from just one national survey I blogged about on March 23, 2014 in a post titled YouGov survey of British adults found they most commonly were very afraid of heights, snakes, public speaking, spiders, and being closed in a small space. YouGov found 27% of women and 13% of men were Very Afraid of public speaking. At the other end of the spectrum, another post on February 19, 2015 titled 2014 YouGov fear surveys show a fearlessness gap between men and women similarly showed that 26% of men but only 14% of women were Not Afraid at All.

There also was a YouGov survey of U. S. adults, which I blogged about on April 2, 2014 in a post titled YouGov survey of U.S. adults found they most commonly were afraid of snakes, heights, public speaking, spiders, and being closed in a small space. YouGov similarly found 24% of women and 16% of men were Very Afraid of public speaking. There was a similar fearlessness gap to Britain - 29% of men but only 16% of women were Not Afraid at all.

Women also fear public speaking more than men. In another post on November 10, 2015 titled YouGov survey done in 2014 found U.S. adults were less than A Little Afraid of public speaking, I showed how to calculate a Fear Score on a scale from 1 = Not afraid at all to 4 = Very afraid. For the U.S. survey the fear score was 2.70 for women and 2.36 for men. For the British survey the fear score was 2.79 for women and 2.33 for men.

There are three other well-known older U.S. surveys that found more women than men feared public speaking. The 2001 Gallup poll reported in an article titled Snakes top list of Americans’ fears found 44% of women and 37% of mean feared public speaking in front of an audience. On May 19, 2011 I blogged about  America’s Number One Fear: Public Speaking – that 1993 Bruskin-Goldring survey, which found 54% of women and 34% of men feared speaking before a group. On October 27, 2009 I blogged about The 14 Worst Human Fears in the 1977 Book of Lists: Where did this data really come from? In the 1973 Bruskin survey 46% of women and 36% of men feared speaking before a group.

How about the Fear of Public Speaking Statistics web page at Statistic Brain which claims 75% of women and 73% of men suffer from speech anxiety? Those are phony statistics, and there really was no survey from the National Institute of Mental Health. I blogged about it on July 15, 2012 in a post titled Another bogus statistic on the fear of public speaking.

There also are two U.S. studies of university students which used fear survey schedules to determine how much women and men feared public speaking. On October 13, 2012 I blogged about how In a 1992 study of U.S. university students, fear of public speaking ranked sixth for men and eighth for women. Klieger found that for speaking in public, on a scale from 0 to 4, women had an average fear of 2.04 versus men at 1.82. On October 10, 2012 I blogged about how In a 1965 study of university students, fear of public speaking ranked sixth for men and seventh for women. Geer found that for speaking before a group, on a scale from 1 to 7, women had an average fear of 2.87 versus men at 2.59.

For over decades psychologists have known that there are gender differences to fears. Why didn’t Mr. Crawford get the message?

But the fear monster really isn’t as big as you might imagine (and his body feathers have been Photoshopped). With training and experience he usually shrinks down to his actual size, shown above. Fluther is a little Finger Monster toy sold by Archie McPhee, as seen in a YouTube video. I got him at Re-Pop Gifts here in Boise.

June is Effective Communications Month, but somehow I didn’t get the message

A post on June 7th from DeFinis Communications (which appeared at AllTop Speaking under The Presentation Skills Blog) was titled June is Effective Communications Month!

An undated article by Denise Wakeman proclaimed:

“Did you know that June is Effective Communications Month? It’s a real holiday, listed in Chase’s Calendar of Events.”

Chase’s Calendar of Events is an annual, 1-1/2’ thick, 8-1/2” by 11” $80 paperback reference book published by Bernan Press. It's a conversation piece for victims of insomnia. The front cover describes it as follows:

“12,500 Entries. 196 countries. 366 Days. All in one book....The Ultimate Go-to Guide for Special Days, Weeks and Months. 4000 notable birthdays. 1,400 historical anniversaries. 650 national and international holidays. 160 religious holidays. And thousands of additional days of note from around the globe. The Authority Since 1957.”

I had blogged about Chase’s in an August 8, 2014 post titled Was yesterday really National Public Speaker Day? In that post I noted that it was useful if you were an emcee (like the Toastmaster at a club meeting) and had run out of ideas for a theme (or a topic to joke about).

I borrowed the 2016 edition of Chase’s from the Meridian Public Library. (The latest 2017 one doesn’t circulate). 

Who came up with Effective Communications Month? The entry for it in Chase’s says:

“EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATIONS MONTH, June 1-30. The most important cog in the wheel of interpersonal relationships is communication. Active listening, verbal language, paralanguage, body language and written communication skills are the essence of how humans relate to each other personally and professionally. This month is dedicated to learning how to communicate more effectively. For info: Sylvia Anderson, Springboard Training, PO Box 588, Olney, MD 20830-0588. Phone (301) 260-1538. E-mail: sylvia@springboardtraining.com. Web: www. ideasuccessnetwork.com.”

Why didn’t I get the message? Way too much information! According to Chase’s, June also is:

Adopt-A-Shelter Cat Month
African-American Music Appreciation Month
Audiobook Appreciation Month
Cancer From the Sun Month
Caribbean-American Heritage Month
Cataract Awareness Month
Child Vision Awareness Month
Children’s Awareness Month
Dairy Alternatives Month
Entrepreneurs ‘Do It Yourself’ Marketing Month
Gay and Lesbian Pride Month
Great Outdoors Month
International Men’s Month
International Surf Music Month
June Dairy Month
June is Perennial Gardening Month
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month
Men’s Health Education and Awareness Month
Migraine and Headache Awareness Month
National Aphasia Awareness Month
National Bedroom Reading Month
National Candy Month
National Caribbean-American Heritage Month
National GLBT Book Month
National Iced Tea Month
National Rivers Month
National Safety Month
National Oceans Month
National Soul Food Month
National Zoo and Aquarium Month
Pharmacists Declare War on Alcoholism
PTSD Awareness Month
Rebuild Your Life Month
Skyscraper Month
Sports America Kids Month
Student Safety Month

That’s 35 months to celebrate just in June, if we count Caribbean-American Heritage Month just once. There are 11 National, 8 Awareness, 2 Appreciation, 2 International, 2 Music, and 2 Safety months.

An article at Idea Success Network claims Sylvia Anderson was responsible for getting the following eight months into Chase’s:

February: both National Time Management Month and Youth Leadership Month
March: International Ideas Month
May: Motorcycle Safety Month
June: Effective Communications Month
July: Women’s Motorcycle Month
August: Black Business Month
October: Positive Attitude Month

It also claimed a ninth, September: Self-Improvement Month, but that was not in the 2016 edition. Perhaps they forgot since September also is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Month.

The monkey was adapted from a no evil image at Wikimedia Commons.

Which quote is fake, and which is real?

1] "I not only use all the brains I have, but all I can borrow." - Woodrow Wilson

2] “For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn.” - Ernest Hemingway

The first one, attributed to Woodrow Wilson, is real. A definitive source for it is the first footnote in a CIA web article by Mark E. Benbow titled All the Brains I can Borrow: Woodrow Wilson and Intelligence Gathering in Mexico, 1913-1915.

The second one, supposedly from Ernest Hemingway, is actually fake. Garson O’Toole discussed it in a 2013 web article at his Quote Investigator site, and it also is in his 2017 book titled Hemingway Didn’t Say That - the truth behind familiar quotations.
 
There are at least four other books that discuss the dubious nature of some quotations. In 1989 there was Paul F. Boller, Jr. and John George’s They Never Said It a book of fake quotes, misquotes, and misleading attributions. In 1992 there was Ralph Keyes’s “Nice guys finish seventh”: False phrases, spurious sayings, and familiar misquotations. In 2006 there was another Ralph Keyes book, The Quote Verifier; who said what, where, and when and also Elizabeth Knowles’s What They Didn’t Say a book of misquotations.

Quotes have a bad habit of changing wildly, like in the parlor game we call Telephone in the U.S., but that Wikipedia calls Chinese whispers where:

“one person whispers a message to the ear of the next person through a line of people until the last player announces the message to the entire group.”

The description of Mr. Keye’s 1992 book at Amazon notes some mechanisms for change:

“Freud may never have said ‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,’ for example, but we certainly wish he had. Keyes calls this ‘the flypaper effect.’ Orphan quotes or comments by unknowns routinely gravitate to noted figures such as Churchill, Lincoln, or Twain. Other syndromes Keyes discusses include bumper stickering (condensing a long comment to make it more quotable), lip syncing (mouthing someone else's words as if they were your own), and retro-quoting (putting words in the mouths of famous dead people).”

I first used a slightly incorrect version of the Wilson quote in a June 14, 2008 blog post titled QUOTATIONS: “I use not only all the brains I have, but all I can borrow.”

The image of a shrug was adapted from one at Openclipart.

Should you use a quotation, or just let your own words fall out?

I just ran across an interesting article from May 31, 2017 at CounterPunch by Kim C. Domenico titled Add Meaning, Stir and Bake: A New Anarchist Recipe in which she said:

“....Beginning with my husband’s fiftieth  birthday, I realized if there was something I longed to hear spoken at a gathering or occasion, I should not undertake a search for the apt Rumi poem or the Native American chant.  Rather, I needed to take the truly radical path:  I should speak the words I wanted to hear!  Over the 18 years since then, this ceremonial speaking has become probably the most ‘anarchist’ thing I do, which is, to speak truly to occasions in a way that revives the eternal meanings and verities for me, trusting the words will strike at least some chords in the listeners.”

Her words reminded me of the Sara Bareilles song Brave, which says just to:

“Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave”

I blogged about that song on August 1, 2013 in a post titled Joy of letting the words fall out.

What do you think?



UPDATE: June 14, 2017

If you are tempted to quote the Sufi mystic Rumi, keep in mind that his poems might not mean what you think. Look up an article from April 16, 2014 by Mohammed Ghilan at Aljazeera on April 16, 2014 titled What was Rumi talking about?

The same caution applies to modern Sufi songwriting. Richard Thompson’s lovely song Dimming of the Day can be taken as a romantic duet, as in the 2010 version with Bonnie Raitt. But if you just look at the cover for his and his wife Linda’s 1975 album Pour Down Like Silver, you would think differently about what was meant.

Why don’t we spell the way we talk?

 

When she was a young schoolgirl, my mother got very frustrated about having to learn the spelling for her hometown. Cincinnati is located on the Ohio river. Why is there a double N? Why isn’t it Sinsinati? Why isn’t the Kentucky town across the river spelled Kuvingtun instead of Covington?

A generation later and upstream I was similarly upset by spelling Pittsburgh (double T, ending with a silent h). Even worse was the long state name of Pennsylvania. Again, why the double N? Why wasn’t that city spelled Pitsberg, and that state spelled Pensilvaineya?

I found a 16-minute TEDxRiodelaplata talk from 2015 by Karina Galperin in Buenos Aires, Argentina titled Should We Simplify Spelling? that discussed the same problem with spelling in the Spanish language. 

Why don’t we just write words the way we pronounce them?