Over the years¸ various people have misheard various sayings, causing the original phrasing to be changed when the statement was later reused.
Often the modification has occurred because an original speaker used hurtful, racist or stereotypical references which the listener assumed could not have been intended. As a result, the more fair-minded listener subconsciously altered what he or she had heard to something they assumed “must have been said.”
For example, most people today describe a temporary fix using readily available materials not actually intended for the purpose to be an example of “Jury-rigging” – being totally un-aware that the actual phrase stems from World Wars I and II when the world was aligned against Germany. The original phrase, “Gerry-rigging,” was a negative reference to the Germans.
Similarly, the negative stereotype describing persons of Jewish descent as being austere, cheap, or tough negotiators caused some anti-Semites to refer to situations in which an opponent successfully argued for a lower price as one in which the price was “Jewed down.”
Over the years, however, the phrase has become altered to “chewed down,” a description which carries forward the meaning of aggressively negotiating to lower a price, without the racist implications. Most people today who use the “chewed down” phrase also have no idea of the original phraseology.
Recently, however, I encountered a phrase alteration which was somewhat hard to fathom. I am co-counsel with a large firm out of Philadelphia. Not wishing to incur the costs of having two senior partners involved in a court hearing, the client asked my Pennsylvania colleagues to send a lower-rate charging associate to join me in Court. The young man who made the trip was a fourth year lawyer, sharp as a tack, with a keen grasp on the material. He also was creative and had an above-average ability to think in the box – or at least that’s how he described it.
We were sitting in a conference room the night before the hearing, discussing the legal fine points and the arguments to be made.
“We need to find a way to persuade the judge to see how this case is different from the precedent the other side keeps hammering,” my young colleague had pointed out. “We need a way to get the judge to think in the box.”
“You mean, out of the box”, I suggested.
He looked at me with a wry smile on his face. “My senior partner in my firm gets that wrong too,” he began. “I guess it’s a generational thing.”
I was taken aback. After I clarified that he was, in fact, attempting to describe creative thought, out of the norm, I assured him the phrase was “out of the box” and not “in the box.”
“The way most people think is described as “in the box,” I explained, “so that when you are being creative or thinking differently you are outside of the norm, and thus OUT of the box.”
“But that ignores the cigars”, he laughed, “not to mention depriving us lawyers of our justly deserved credit for creating the expression.” Seeing I was confused, he shook his head and explained. The famous lawyer, David Hewn, was a fifth year lawyer with a Miami-based law firm when he was hired to defend a construction company in a complicated suit pending in Middle-ton, Conn.
Throughout the pretrial phase, he desperately tried to find a legal theory of defense, a helpful witness, or anything that could help save the day for his client, all to no avail. The first day of trial arrived, and Hewn and his client were in no better position. It was time to think creatively, to come up with an approach that most would not think of. Having no other thought, Hewn approached a senior partner of his law firm and asked if she thought
it would be a worthwhile, last ditch approach, to use his Miami connections, and to simply send the judge a box of Cuban cigars.
The partner was horrified. “This case is in the middle of conservative Connecticut. The judge is an ethical, religious, and conservative man. Such a stunt will not only be unhelpful, but it will guarantee you will lose the case!”
Weeks later, the judge ruled in favor of Hewn’s client. The partner heard of the ruling and stuck her head in Hewn’s office. “You should never lose confidence” she said, “If you had sent those cigars you would have ruined a winnable case.” Hewn however just smiled. “I did send the cigars” he explained, “I just put the other side’s business card inside the box.” My young colleague stopped his explanation and looked at me. “And that is where the saying “to think inside the box,” comes from, he exclaimed.