Talk:Carrot and stick/Archive 1

Fox News appears to have stopped using it
I sent a letter to Chris Wallace Sunday pointing out the incorrect usage of the metaphor (as I see it) and on Tuesday the various reporters and Brit Hume on "Special Report" were using the phrase "package of incentives and punishments/disincentives" almost exclusively, except Brit used "carrots and sticks" once during the broadcast. On Wednesday's show Brit and all other contributors only used the incentives/disincentives phrase. Not very colorful but I sure like it better.--JuiceBoxYes 03:09, 13 July, 2006 (UTC)
 * I wonder if they actually got your letter or if it's just a coincidence LOL. --hello, i'm a member  |  talk to me!  22:45, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

2007-02-1 Automated pywikipediabot message
--CopyToWiktionaryBot 02:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

sticks
I always thought that Carrot and stick simply meant that you punish bad people and reward good people. You don't do both at the same time, as the first paragraph poorly explains. Whats the point in that?Tourskin 02:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Two separate things, I think
I get the sense from this discussion that there is general agreement that "the carrot AND the stick" is distinct from "the carrot ON a stick", and indeed all the citations clearly support this except the NYTimes letter to the editor. I believe this is the factual case, and that the wrong one is given emphasis here. So, I'm going to invert the emphasis and correct it. --Daviga1 23:24 15 November 2008 (EST)

Reference does not convey same message as article
No reference/external link to confirm statement: "This is an erroneous use of the phrase.", and actually first external link claims completely opposite (did anybody followed the link). Based on that link, I will change the article. [19 May 2009]

Validity
I'd like to know if a carrot dangling on a stick will actually encourage a donkey to move along faster, and where there's a record of the carrot and stick used in conjunction with animal husbandry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.177.123.160 (talk) 04:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Not sure about in real-life, but the earliest depiction of a carrot on a stick in the media that I recall seeing is from the Little Rascals shorts from the 1920s and 1930s. It also appears a number of times in the Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes cartoons. All of these early depictions use a carrot dangling from a stick. The Rascals depiction certainly predates the 1948 The Economist usage cited in the article (by way of the Oxford English Dictionary). The folks back in Oxford must not have watched much Little Rascals (this statmt. intended as humour). Related thought: I have seen a fuzzy ball on a stick work on a cat in real-life. :) 02:55, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

It's way older than that
The page notes that the earliest citation in the OED is to 1948, but this recently came up on alt.usage.english and I turned up a citation from 1876 on Google Books

Accordingly, as we have seen, praise and blame were to him mere instruments for the formation of expedient characters, by an    arbitrary associateion of pleasurable ideas with expedient actions. They were to man what carrots or sticks are to a horse or an ass--engines of manufacture, not revelations of truth. It    was this carrot and stick discipline to which Mr. John Mill was subjected, and which he accepted dutifully as flowing from that perfect wisdom of which up to this time his father had been the representative. Lord Blanchford, "The Reality of Duty", The Contemporary Review, August, 1876 There's also a contrast of enticing a donkey to move by dangling a carrot in front of it and trying to do so by hitting it with a stick in an 1860 lecture ("The Earth Framed and Furnished as a Habitation for Man") by William Arnot.

In all of the early "dangled carrot" references I've seen, the carrot is dangled from a pole rather than a stick. --Evank (talk) 22:37, 7 December 2007 (UTC)


 * There may be a (regional???) difference on opinion on what a "pole" is. There are many people who think anything of that type shorter than a man is more likely a stick and anything twice the length of a man is more likely a pole (use of man-length only as example reference). In-between is a bit fuzzy. Poles are also thought of by some as thick and heavy (not useful for the literal carrot on a stick concept). The early depictions I have seen (which I noted in a section above) use a light, thin stick of perhaps 2 to 3 feet in length. — al-Shimoni  (talk) 03:10, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

What common sense dictates...
This seems to be a contentious area, and expressing dismay with one camp seems a little rash when one is not fully aware of what is at stake.

There are two expressions or metaphors, both availing of a particular meaning of carrot, which meaning it gained because of the expressions. There is the "carrot on a stick", and there is the "carrot and stick". While 'carrot' refers to the same concept in each expression (namely reward), the expressions themselves differ in meaning. The "carrot on a stick" is exactly what the author of the vague polemic in the discussion page thinks he means by "carrot and stick", and the "carrot and stick" is exactly what he thinks is the bastardised meaning.

Anyone looking for a pithy distinction: Carrot on a stick is the ever-unattainable incentive. Carrot and stick is the contrast between reward and punishment.--Rubie 15:26, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * In Danish it's called "pisk eller gulerod" (whip or carrot) and in German "Zuckerbrot und Peitsche" (sugarbread and whip) - the meaning in both languages being reward/punishment. Mikkel (talk) 19:09, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

The point being...
My point in writing the above is that it is misleading to say that the meaning of the expression changed. There are two distinct expressions, and neither has changed its meaning or use. A seperate point may be that people are using the two incorrectly, or are unaware of the distinction, as the original author of the entry.--Rubie 15:29, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * This was a great explanation of the distinction between the two phrases. Someone should find a way to work it into the main article, as there's currently not much said on the subject beyond mentioning that there's some disagreement. 192.203.137.241 (talk) 17:58, 28 February 2013 (UTC)