The Oedipus Complex
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How do these things seem to get turned around? Oedipus, jack of all trades, blood is thicker than water, curiosity killed the cat… so many phrases get truncated and used to mean the opposite of what they originally intended.
How do these things seem to get turned around?
They speak to a deeper truth than the originals. People regularly fixate on their parents as idols and seek out peers/romantic partners that share these traits. Besides, the original allegory of Oedipus implies a man who is actively fighting is destiny - fleeing his found family, precisely because he wishes to avoid prophecy - but stumbling into it because "destiny" compelled his actions. The idea that you cannot escape this destiny is in line with the Freudian instinctual response.
Past that, a lot of the modern turns of phrase are clarifying. Jack of all trade*, master of none* reminds the listener that one's time and talent are are finite resource. "I also hear it said that kin-blood is not spoiled by (baptismal) water" reminds the listener that one's old family roots can have a firmer hold than a newly discovered religiosity or traveled distance (which may alternately assure or question one's loyalty to a tribe based on their family origin).
"Curiosity killed the cat" probably got the turn of phrase just because worry killed the cat is less in line with a modern cat's understood character.
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Nobody, and I mean NOBODY with any amount of psychology education actually think Freud was right on anything. He was the biggest pseudoscientist of all time.
See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_complex#CriticismStudies conducted of children's attitudes to parents at the oedipal stage do not demonstrate the shifts in positive feelings that are predicted by the theory.[54] Case studies that Freud relied upon, such as the case of Little Hans, could not be verified through research or experimentation on a larger population.[55] Adolf Grünbaum argues that the type of evidence Freud and his followers used, the clinical productions of patients during analytic treatment, by their nature cannot provide cogent observational support for Freud's core hypotheses.[56]
Evolutionary psychologists Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, in their 1988 book Homicide, argue that the Oedipus complex theory yields few testable predictions. They find no evidence of the Oedipus complex in people. There is evidence of parent–child conflict but it is not for sexual possession of the opposite sex-parent.[57]
According to psychiatrist Jeffrey Lieberman, Freud and his followers resisted subjecting his theories, including the Oedipus theory, to scientific testing and verification.[58] Lieberman claims that investigations based in cognitive psychology either contradict or fail to support Freud's ideas.[58]
Nobody is arguing that Freud was right.
They're explaining why Freud named it the Oedipus complex.I agree with them. Just because Freud was wrong doesn't mean his reasoning for the naming wasn't consistent with his beliefs. He believed that the ignorance allowed Oedipus to express the internal desire that would otherwise be inhibited.
He was wrong, but that explains why he named it this way.
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I can see it easily, except for Oedipus. They're all about subverting the initial phrase but when people know the whole thing, they just shorten it to the start of the phrase.
New people come in, hearing only the start of the phrase and assume incorrectly what it's referring to before passing that along.
This makes sense. Common usage shortened it because everyone knows it, but then it begins to be misunderstood and then misused because the shortened version makes more sense.
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How do these things seem to get turned around? Oedipus, jack of all trades, blood is thicker than water, curiosity killed the cat… so many phrases get truncated and used to mean the opposite of what they originally intended.
Per this comment I found it seems that "Blood is thicker than water" didn't change its meaning.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/37a4lg/comment/crl1yly/
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On the other hand, any mythological stories about sons who schutpped Mom and had no regrets? Pretty sure that's not a thing.
Well there's the biblical story of Lot and his two daughters getting him drunk so they can get pregnant with his seed:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis+19%3A30-38&version=NIV
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Per this comment I found it seems that "Blood is thicker than water" didn't change its meaning.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/37a4lg/comment/crl1yly/
Adding to this to say "Jack of all trades" also hasn't changed its meaning. The "But master of none" seems to be a latter addition, and doesn't really negate the original meaning of "being capable in a lot of trades". Additionally, there is some belief that there is a following third part "but oftentimes better than a master of one" rehighlighting the value of being skilled in multiple "trades".
Source - Wiki Jack of all trades
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yeah he shows up later in Antimoney to basically goof it up and be like "oh yeah nah this whole family is fucked because of some fucked shit. anyway, i'm here to be both wise and a goofass"
Assuming autocorrect got you, but for anyone that is trying to look up more info: the play name is Antigone.
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eats fortune cookie
"You will have sex with your mother"
...
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How do these things seem to get turned around? Oedipus, jack of all trades, blood is thicker than water, curiosity killed the cat… so many phrases get truncated and used to mean the opposite of what they originally intended.
Pulling oneself by one's bootstraps used to signify the absurdity of getting out of a difficult situation all on your own.
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Everyone should reread the story. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Oedipus-Greek-mythology
Dude didn't know and was trying to be a great guy.
I gonna be honest, its much more advisable to read some form of summary, because the original text is boring as hell, written in a very hard to understand style and is all in all a complete shithole.
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Reminds me of Diogenes syndrome.
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Adding to this to say "Jack of all trades" also hasn't changed its meaning. The "But master of none" seems to be a latter addition, and doesn't really negate the original meaning of "being capable in a lot of trades". Additionally, there is some belief that there is a following third part "but oftentimes better than a master of one" rehighlighting the value of being skilled in multiple "trades".
Source - Wiki Jack of all trades
wrote last edited by [email protected]I feel like "Jack of All Trades, Master of None" does negate the meaning of "Jack of all trades". The Wiki article you linked to even points this out.
"The "master of none" element ... made the statement less flattering to the person receiving it.... "Jack of all trades, master of none" generally describes a person whose knowledge, while covering a number of areas, is superficial in all of them."
The original phrase meant someone who was competent in a lot of different areas, a well rounded person. The 'Master of None' is someone who has superficial knowledge in a lot of areas, but isn't really proficient in any of them.
It's basically the early form of "The Dunning-Kruger Effect". It describes someone who thinks they are great because they have some knowledge in a lot of areas, but not enough to realize how far away they are from truly understanding any of them.
One is a compliment, the other is an insult.
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How do these things seem to get turned around? Oedipus, jack of all trades, blood is thicker than water, curiosity killed the cat… so many phrases get truncated and used to mean the opposite of what they originally intended.
wrote last edited by [email protected]How do these things seem to get turned around?
Time basically.
Some of it is because of Irony. Similar to how people in the 80/90s use the word "Bad" to mean "Really Good", other words changed meaning because of ironic usage.
Egregious used to mean "rising above the flock, exceptional, distinguished." People kept using it ironically so much that it now means exceptionally bad or distinguished by being particularly bad.
Other words have had a more gradual evolution to their opposites, like "Nice". It originally meant foolish or weak. During the middle ages it came to mean shy, reserved, or fastidious, but those qualities were still considered 'weak'. In the late 1700s society began to see merit in those qualities and so being 'nice' was no longer a foolish or bad thing to be.
Same thing with phrases and idioms. Hundreds of years can have a weird effect on language.
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How do these things seem to get turned around? Oedipus, jack of all trades, blood is thicker than water, curiosity killed the cat… so many phrases get truncated and used to mean the opposite of what they originally intended.
all of those are (close to) the original phrase, they did not get truncated, they got amended later. Now why someone would try to turn their meanings around that way is still a good question
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Also known as a Freudian slip.
im slipping!
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How do these things seem to get turned around? Oedipus, jack of all trades, blood is thicker than water, curiosity killed the cat… so many phrases get truncated and used to mean the opposite of what they originally intended.
curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back
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Reminds me of Diogenes syndrome.
Fuck everyone's mother including his own?
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I feel like "Jack of All Trades, Master of None" does negate the meaning of "Jack of all trades". The Wiki article you linked to even points this out.
"The "master of none" element ... made the statement less flattering to the person receiving it.... "Jack of all trades, master of none" generally describes a person whose knowledge, while covering a number of areas, is superficial in all of them."
The original phrase meant someone who was competent in a lot of different areas, a well rounded person. The 'Master of None' is someone who has superficial knowledge in a lot of areas, but isn't really proficient in any of them.
It's basically the early form of "The Dunning-Kruger Effect". It describes someone who thinks they are great because they have some knowledge in a lot of areas, but not enough to realize how far away they are from truly understanding any of them.
One is a compliment, the other is an insult.
The full saying goes: "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one."
That really drives home the point
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How do these things seem to get turned around? Oedipus, jack of all trades, blood is thicker than water, curiosity killed the cat… so many phrases get truncated and used to mean the opposite of what they originally intended.
Honestly I don't see why it'd matter what the "original" phrase is (except for Oedipus but that's an entire story). Just because it's the original doesn't make it more true.
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The full saying goes: "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one."
That really drives home the point
wrote last edited by [email protected]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_of_all_trades#Other_quotation_variants
The phrase with the "master of none" element is sometimes expanded into a less unflattering couplet with the second line: "but oftentimes better than a master of one" (or variants thereof), with some sources (who?) stating that such a couplet is the "original" version, with the second line having been dropped. Online discussions attempting to find instances of this second line dated to before the twenty-first century have resulted in no response, however.
I've never in life heard someone say that 3rd line. It should also be noted that even on the Wikipedia article about this speculation, they don't link to a single source. I believe that line is a purely modern invention.
Even in the post I was replying to Jacksilver says "The “But master of none” seems to be a latter addition". The fact that it's a later addition is mentioned in the article as well. How could 'The Full Phrase' include a later addition if it was "the original"?
If the intention is to be the same as the original meaning, it weakens it. Why throw a little shade in there (master of none) if you are tying to compliment someone?
Even if that were 'The Full Saying' leaving that part off changes the context, so "Jack of all Trades, Master of None" absolutely has a different connotation that 'The Full Saying'.
