“Different strokes for different folks” is a phrase I’ve heard occasionally, and comes up in some songs and of course the hugely popular 80’s sit-com *Diff’rent Strokes”.
What does the word ‘strokes’ refer to?
By the way, it took me a while to get Google to find all the various definitions of the word. Everything I tried at first just took me to the something related to the medical issue.
According to the Phrase Finder the first recorded use is by Muhammed Ali, so strokes refers to whatever he referred to.
He was literally referring to punches, so it could be poetic license for “strikes” to make it closer to a rhyme, or maybe he was comparing beating someone into submission to painting a canvas and was thinking of “brush strokes”.
I’ve always thought it meant motivations or motives.
I’ve always thought it was about painting. Like the stroke of a paintbrush. Is that weird?
^I always thought it referred to painting, as well.
No poetic license needed. The primary noun definition for “stroke” is “the act of striking.”
Or could be taken as meaning swimming strokes?
Ha! Of course you are right. What an interesting blind spot in my comprehension!
I’ve always taken the phrase to be a synonym for the phrase “whatever floats your boat.” I.e,. different people have different interests, feelings, etc.
Didn’t any of you live through the 60s?
“Everyday People” by Sly and the Family Stone was a number one hit for four weeks in 1969.
Sometimes I’m right and I can be wrong
My own beliefs are in my song
The butcher, the banker, the drummer and then
Makes no difference what group I’m in
I am everyday people, yeah yeahThere is a blue one who can’t accept
The green one for living with
A fat one tryin’ to be a skinny one
Different strokes for different folks
And so on and so on and scooby dooby dooby
It was the feeliest feel-good song about accepting peoples’ differences, one of the last aftermaths of the summer of love.
To my memory. nobody associated the phrase with Ali after that song. It was played everywhere all the time, used in commercials, and cited regularly long before the tv show. “Different strokes for different folks” was the American slang version of à chacun son.
Man, the 60s really are over, aren’t they?
Yes, and I think that the meaning and usage of the entire phrase is obvious to most. But as some of the previous posters figured out, the word ‘strokes’ still must have a literal meaning. It wasn’t invented just to rhyme with ‘folks’.
Hitting, painting, swimming…when it comes to “strokes” these are all ways to move, and we all move in different ways, both physically and mentally.
I have read that Gary Coleman claimed that he had been abused and abandoned by everyone he ever loved or trusted, and that is a large part of the reason he cited why he was in the process of joining the “Mormon” church (Also know as the “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints”) before he was murdered. killed by his new Mormon wife, which she successfully claimed was merely a tragic accident.
Does anyone know what Todd Bridges, Gary’s cocaine-addict co-star on “Diff’rent Strokes” does to honor Gary’s memory?
Moderator Note
This is pretty much completely unrelated to the meaning of the word “strokes” in “different strokes for different folks.” Feel free to create a new thread to discuss it if you’d like, but it’s a bit too off-topic for this thread.
I knew what it meant, but I couldn’t remember the source. But you are correct. It is a call to accept differences among people.
While the 60’s might be over, they still resonate and influence today.
As Ali used the phrase, it had a literal meaning. But mostly a rhyming one. Sly metaphored it.
Strokes = petting. Duh.
I don’t think it’s really a blind spot, given that it was a boxer who said it. Although I suppose a boxing punch does technically fall under the broader term “stroke”, I think it’s not the word most speakers would usually choose. It was obviously motivated principally by wanting to make the rhyme work.
I always thought it was a reference to the line about the “different drummer,” by Thoreau. The “stroke” was against the drum.
I like this theory. There’s lots of ways to get to the other side of a pool.
Um, is this a euphemism?