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People misuse expressions. A common one is the customer is always right. The actual wording is the customer is always right in matters of taste but people cut o

by sfn42 1y ago

People misuse expressions. A common one is the customer is always right. The actual wording is the customer is always right in matters of taste but people cut off the ending which changes it from a sensible and useful proverb to a bunch of nonsense. Of course the customer isn't always right. They're always right in terms of what they want to buy, not in all other terms. Similarly an exception like a lawyer being a good ceo does not prove a rule like lawyers are bad CEOs. It's nonsense. People who don't understand the proverb took it and misused it and then others took after them and here we are, I've been wondering about that proverb my entire life and I never understood how it makes any sense. Now I finally do, and I'm glad the other commenter clarified it

j5r5myk 1y ago
There is a common phenomenon where people claim proverbial quotes were originally longer. One I often hear is “Jack of all trades master of none” originally including the follow up “often better than a master of none.” If you research this, as well as the customer as always right as you claim, you will find no evidence of their longer ‘original’ forms [1]. [1] https://www.snopes.com/articles/468815/customer-is-always-right-origin/ https://www.snopes.com/articles/468815/customer-is-always-ri...
bee_rider 1y ago
On top of what j5r5myk mentioned, there is a fairly good record of the origin on “the customer is always right,” (described on Wikipedia) because it was something like a moderately well known person’s catchphrase, in an era when newspapers and marketing existed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_customer_is_always_right https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_customer_is_always_right There’s some quibbling to be had about the meaning, but it puts it closer to “assume good faith” or something like that, rather than reducing it to just preferences. > The earliest known printed mention of the phrase is a September 1905 article in the Boston Globe about Field, which describes him as "broadly speaking" adhering to the theory that "the customer is always right". > However, John William Tebbel was of the opinion that Field never himself actually said such a thing, because he was "no master of idiom". Tebbel rather believed it probable that what Field would have actually said was "Assume the customer is right until it is plain beyond all question that he is not."

by sfn42 1y ago

j5r5myk 1y ago

There is a common phenomenon where people claim proverbial quotes were originally longer. One I often hear is “Jack of all trades master of none” originally including the follow up “often better than a master of none.” If you research this, as well as the customer as always right as you claim, you will find no evidence of their longer ‘original’ forms [1]. [1] https://www.snopes.com/articles/468815/customer-is-always-right-origin/ https://www.snopes.com/articles/468815/customer-is-always-ri...

bee_rider 1y ago

On top of what j5r5myk mentioned, there is a fairly good record of the origin on “the customer is always right,” (described on Wikipedia) because it was something like a moderately well known person’s catchphrase, in an era when newspapers and marketing existed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_customer_is_always_right https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_customer_is_always_right There’s some quibbling to be had about the meaning, but it puts it closer to “assume good faith” or something like that, rather than reducing it to just preferences. > The earliest known printed mention of the phrase is a September 1905 article in the Boston Globe about Field, which describes him as "broadly speaking" adhering to the theory that "the customer is always right". > However, John William Tebbel was of the opinion that Field never himself actually said such a thing, because he was "no master of idiom". Tebbel rather believed it probable that what Field would have actually said was "Assume the customer is right until it is plain beyond all question that he is not."