People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
mm
throw stones." When and why?
I've deleted the urls already, but please trust me that I can cut and
paste correctly. :)
The proverb has been traced back to Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Troilus and
Criseyde' (1385). George Herbert wrote in 1651: 'Whose house is of
glass, must not throw stones at another.' This saying is first cited
in the United States in 'William & Mary College Quarterly' (1710).
Twenty-six later Benjamin Franklin wrote, 'Don't throw stones at your
neighbors', if your own windows are glass.' 'To live in a glass house'
is used as a figure of speech referring to vulnerability." From
"Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings" (1996) by
Gregory Y. Titelman (Random House, New York, 1996).
Also:
A further counsel bear in mind:
If that thy roof be made of glass,
It shows small wit to pick up stones
To pelt the people as they pass.
Don Quixote 1605
These sayings do seem to refer more to vulnerabilty, yet now the
phrase refers to a double standard or hypocisy.
The glass is now not just something easy to break, but something one
can look through and see the faults of the person complaining about
someone else's faults.
When did this change, and why?
--
Posters should say where they live, and for which area
they are asking questions. I was born and then lived in
Western Pa. 10 years
Indianapolis 7 years
Chicago 6 years
Brooklyn, NY 12 years
Baltimore 26 years
Mark Brader
> Has the meaning changed of "People who live in glass houses shouldn't
> These [old cites] do seem to refer more to vulnerabilty, yet now the
> phrase refers to a double standard or hypocisy.
I don't see a change; I think it's just that in these cases the people
in the glass houses may be vulnerable *to having their hypocrisy exposed*.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "Courtesy, hell. We're programmers not humans."
m...@vex.net | -- S. M. Ryan
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
It may have changed quite early, if "change" is the right word.
Brewer's Phrase and Fable says:
Live in a glass house, To. To be in a vulnerable position morally;
to be open to attack. An expression arising from the old proverb
'those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones'. It is found
in various forms from the time of Chaucer.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> Has the meaning changed of "People who live in glass houses shouldn't
> throw stones." When and why?
>
> I've deleted the urls already, but please trust me that I can cut and
> paste correctly. :)
>
> The proverb has been traced back to Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Troilus and
> Criseyde' (1385). ...
>
> These sayings do seem to refer more to vulnerabilty, yet now the
> phrase refers to a double standard or hypocisy.
>
> The glass is now not just something easy to break, but something one
> can look through and see the faults of the person complaining about
> someone else's faults.
>
> When did this change, and why?
I don't get the impression that the usage has changed. I still hear it
and usage as a reference to vulnerability.
--
athel
mm
Let me put it this way. It seems to have changed from physcial
vulnerabily to moral vulnerability. The examples I gave don't seem
to me to be about moral vulnerability, except maybe from Don Quixote
depending on what the context is.
"The proverb has been traced back to Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Troilus and
Criseyde' (1385). George Herbert wrote in 1651: 'Whose house is of
glass, must not throw stones at another.' This saying is first cited
in the United States in 'William & Mary College Quarterly' (1710).
Twenty-six later Benjamin Franklin wrote, 'Don't throw stones at your
neighbors', if your own windows are glass.' 'To live in a glass house'
is used as a figure of speech referring to vulnerability." From
"Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings" (1996) by
Gregory Y. Titelman (Random House, New York, 1996)."
Also:
"A further counsel bear in mind:
If that thy roof be made of glass,
It shows small wit to pick up stones
To pelt the people as they pass."
Don Quixote 1605
--
John O'Flaherty
wrote:
I doubt that it ever referred to physical vulnerability - it was
probably coined with the present meaning. Who actually ever lived in a
glass house, or under a glass roof?
The Don Quixote quote is from a poem at the start of the work,
discussing whether or how it should be written, so it's metaphorical.
--
John
Bertel Lund Hansen
> Let me put it this way. It seems to have changed from physcial
> vulnerabily to moral vulnerability.
Surely you don't mean that people used to live in glass houses?
The proverb is known by everybody in Denmark, and it has never
had any other meaning than the moral one - except for a joke if
someone has a greenhouse.
--
Bertel, Denmark
Glenn Knickerbocker
>Let me put it this way. It seems to have changed from physcial
>vulnerabily to moral vulnerability.
The Chaucer passage cited as the origin is pretty clearly a metaphor for
moral or emotional vulnerability. It's in the middle of a song about the
nature of love:
http://books.google.com/books?id=YQhEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA86
>' What is the sunne wors of kynd right,
>Thogh that a man, for feblenes of eyen,
>May not endure to se on it for bright?
>Or love the wors, thogh wrecches on hit crien?
>No wele is he worth that may no sorow drien;
>And forthi, who that hath an hede of verre
>Fro caste of stonys ware hym in the werre.'
In a modern translation by Gerard NeCastro:
http://www.umm.maine.edu/faculty/necastro/chaucer/translation/tr/trpt.txt
>What, is the sun any worse
>because a man on account of the feebleness of his eyes
>cannot endure to look on it?
>Or is Love any worse because wretches cry out against him?
>He who can endure no sorrow is not worthy of happiness;
>and therefore let him who has a head of glass
>beware of the flying stones in battle.
The Herbert proverb is sandwiched between others about moral conduct:
http://books.google.com/books?id=uoUVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA307
>Ill comes in by ells, and goes out by inches.
>The smith and his penny both are black.
>Whose house is of glass, must not throw stones at another.
>If the old dog bark, he gives counsel.
And the earliest examples of use I find at Google Books are clearly about
moral vulnerability:
http://books.google.com/books?id=YTgXotmlb8AC&pg=PA187
The history, debates, and proceedings of both Houses of Parliament of
Great Britain . . . Volume 7 (1744), p. 187:
> as to the aspersions which have been thrown out, that even the
> merchants themselves are guilty of abuses in the entries, I shall only
> remind the calculators for the present of an old Spanish proverb�He
> whose house is made of glass, should not be the first to throw stones.
http://books.google.com/books?id=yIoBAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA165
The History of England, Nicolas Tindal, 1744, p. 165:
> this matter was taken up by the lords, and severely arraigned, first by
> those who value themselves upon their finding fault with every thing
> that is done, because they have not the doing of it; and though some of
> these had once a very friendly application of a Spanish proverb made to
> them, that he, whose house is of glass, should throw no stones; yet
> good nature and zeal for the public are too strong to be long
> restrained,
http://books.google.com/books?id=t4FHAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA288
The Critical review, or, Annals of literature, Volume 1,
by Tobias George Smollett, p. 288:
> Rome, March 30, 1756.
> If that mistake, which does not at all concern the criticism, can
> afford him any pleasure, he is welcome to enjoy it to the full. But,
> while he made this sagacious remark, he ought to have remembered the
> proverb, which saith, a man should never throw stones, who has got a
> glass window in bis head. The reader will furnish him with an epithet,
> when he is informed that this egregious censor has ventured to make
> remarks on the book, tho' he was even ignorant of the title-page; and
> ascribed to Lyttleton, a performance written by Borlace. This is the
> very cream and scum of modern criticism.
http://books.google.com/books?id=M9MRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA234
The Balance, and Columbian repository, Volume 5 (1806)
by Ezra Sampson, George Chittenden, Harry Croswell, p. 234:
> Tom Paine, in one of his papers addressed, I think, to one of the
> Howe's, observes, that "he who lives in a glass house should not throw
> stones." If he had profited by this caution, it might warn him against
> contradicting himself when he was in France.
�R "Hey, I just noticed that 'Flash' rhymes with 'crash'!
I just spent a half hour trying to figure out the STUPIDEST BUG EVAR.
http://users.bestweb.net/~notr/chewy.html Sigh." --Kerri
Glenn Knickerbocker
>Surely you don't mean that people used to live in glass houses?
Brewer (and others before him) wrote that King James famously used the
expression literally regarding the stoning of the Duke's mansion in St.
Martin's Fields, which "had so many windows that it went by the name
'Glass-house.'" I don't think that's evidence that it was *originally*
used literally, though. I put it in the same category as joking about a
greenhouse.
�R >@< >@< >@< >@< >@< http://users.bestweb.net/~notr/chewy.html
I think you're telling me that, if you know the secret spells, you can
actually force Windows into behaving rationally. -- Rob Bannister
mm
>mm skrev:
>
>> Let me put it this way. It seems to have changed from physcial
>> vulnerabily to moral vulnerability.
>
>Surely you don't mean that people used to live in glass houses?
Surely I don't. I'm saying it seems to have been a metaphor for
physical vulnerability. Just as now it is not a metaphor for where
people live but for moral vulnerability.
>
>The proverb is known by everybody in Denmark, and it has never
>had any other meaning than the moral one - except for a joke if
>someone has a greenhouse.
I assume everyone in Denmark was born after 1900. So their opinion
is only worth so much. Plus I don't think you talked to every one of
them.
But Glenn's answer was on point and very good, and a convincing answer
to my question. (which was clearly phrased as a question in the first
post, which didn't go to AEU.) Thank you, Glenn.
erilar
Athel Cornish-Bowden <athe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> I don't get the impression that the usage has changed. I still hear it
> and usage as a reference to vulnerability.
Same here, but I tend to use ancient vocabulary at times 8-)
--
Erilar, biblioholic medievalist
Mike Lyle
[...]
>
> I doubt that it ever referred to physical vulnerability - it was
> probably coined with the present meaning. Who actually ever lived in a
> glass house, or under a glass roof?
> The Don Quixote quote is from a poem at the start of the work,
> discussing whether or how it should be written, so it's metaphorical.
As a general principle, people who live in glass houses shouldn't.
--
Mike.