That’s the way I’ve always understood the expression, but the punishment aspect of the stick seems to have become fairly widespread, and perhaps even the dominant perception.
She will be missed (by some).
It makes more sense to be “carrot OR stick.”
Peter Rabbit Puddleduck ?!? … ok…
I learned that the carrot was the promised reward to the donkey for doing the task, and the stick was the promised punishment for not doing the task.
Merriam-Webster says that it’s reward versus punishment, and has been since the first known use, in 1876.
I, too, thought the stick just held the carrot…
What do you do, show the carrot to the donkey, and then say you’ll give it to him if he cooperates?
Donkeys aren’t stupid. They can be trained, just as a dog can be trained. In fact, you can apply the same metaphor to training a dog to do a task. You can reward him when he sits, or beat him when he doesn’t.
It never occurred to me that the stick might not be a means of punishment. In theory, I suppose it could be used either way (for dangling or beating).
BTW, who didn’t immediately think of the correct response to FJ tonight?
Me, but in my defense, I’m a dumbass.
Okay, not to derail this thread but let’s straighten out this “carrot and stick” business once and for all.
Here’s how the story goes:
Little girl is sitting in a wagon but can’t get the horse to move. So she ties a carrot to the end of a stick and dangles it out in front of the horse Horse wants to eat the carrot and moves forward. As long as the carrot is in front of him he keeps moving. Problem solved!
Yes, I had always imagined something like this image:
And apparently several others here had the same impression.
There’s no suggestion in that illustration (and the examples I had seen since childhood) that the stick will be used to punish the animal, merely the implication that the donkey is stupid enough to keep walking forward in a Sisyphean effort to reach a treat he will never attain. I thought that was the point of the metaphor.
Apparently, if @Railer13 (and Merriam Webster) are right, punishment has always been an element of the saying, and we’ve had the wrong end of the stick this whole time.
ETA: Here’s what Wikipedia says;
The earliest English-language references to the “carrot and stick” come from authors in the mid-1800s who in turn wrote in reference to a “caricature” or cartoon of the time that depicted a race between donkey riders, with the losing jockey using the strategy of beating his steed with “blackthorn twigs” to urge it forward, while the winner of the race sits in his saddle relaxing and holding the butt end of his baited stick.[1][2] In fact, in some oral traditions, turnips were used instead of carrots as the donkey’s temptation.
If she’s sitting in the wagon, and dangling the carrot in front of the horse, how long is that damn stick?
Yup. That is how I have always understood the phrase to mean. I think people just misheard it as “carrot OR stick” and thought it meant reward or punishment. It doesn’t. It means something where the reward is just always out of reach. Nothing whatsoever to do with punishment.
Yes, it was the first thing that popped into my head.
What if we offer you a carrot and/or threaten to beat you with a stick? Will you get the right answer then?
“The carrot and the stick” reminds me of “A rolling stone gathers no moss,” which has two completely opposite meanings. I find that Europeans understand it in one way, while Americans understand it in the other.
Whenever I think of that book (which I had to read in college), I think of the ending of Dinner at Eight.
“Carrot and stick”, to me, means the alternate possibilities of a reward or punishment.
“Carrot on a stick” is the reward dangled in front of someone that they’ll never be able to get to.
Unsurprisingly, I agree 100% with @Robot_Arm.
If you Google “Carrot and stick”, you will find far more references to reward/punishment than dangling a reward just out of reach. Although, as @commasense noted, there are references to both meanings, including in the Wiki article that was linked. Here’s the opening sentence from that article:
The phrase “carrot and stick” is a metaphor for the use of a combination of reward and punishment to induce a desired behavior.
On a back-to-the-topic note, I must admit that I did not know that ‘Brave New World’ was published in 1932. I thought it was after WWII. So, I obviously missed FJ yesterday.