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Carrot unstuck: A new twist in an old debate. "Remember the carrot-and-stick conundrum? Of course you do; it's one of the more vexing language standoffs of our time. Some people say the proper phrase is 'carrot on a stick,' meaning an incentive, a carrot dangled in front of a balky donkey. Others are sure it's 'carrot and stick,' suggesting behavior modification by a combination of bribery and threat. Each faction accuses the other of spreading a corrupted version of the true idiom."
See now, I always thought it was the wrong faction that thought the stick was for punishment. That is actually the moral of the story – only a fool would think about or actually go about hitting the donkey with the stick.
The story:
Stuck along in the middle of the road on the way to market, the simpleton couldn't get his donkey to move by feeding it carrots or by beating it. The wise man came by and was offered by the frustrated simpleton the donkey and the cart full of carrots if he could get it to move. The simpleton presented the wise man with the stick and a carrot, at which point the wise man tied the carrot to the stick with a string, sat on the donkey's back and dangled the carrot in from of the donkey's nose where it could smell the carrot, but just far enough away that it could to reach it. So the donkey stepped forward, trying to get closer to the carrot. And the donkey kept taking steps until the wise man led it all the way to the market where he sold the carrots, the cart and the donkey (to another simpleton, as I remember it).
And the next week, the same wise man repeated the same ruse on the new simpleton who would alternately beat the donkey with the stick or give the donkey a carrot to convince it to move. The moral of the story was that the fool thought that the stick was for beating and the carrot was for bribing.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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