Talk:Blood is thicker than water/Archives/2015

Appeal to loyalty fallacy

This phrase is commonly used in persuasive settings as the Appeal to loyalty fallacy under a family context. It's worth a mention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jnav7 (talk • contribs) 17:44, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I've changed a few parts about the meaning

After reading discussions here and reading the linked documents, I changed the article

• from this
• to this

Basically, there are only two named people who say the expression is about blood covenants (Jack and Pustelniak). Other web pages with this claim are of the "fun facts!" variety and don't even attribute their tidbits to any named person.

I read Pustelniak's page, and it contains no evidence, sources or other info that could confirm his claim.

I read the blog by the woman who bought Jack's book, and she says that his book similarly has no info about where this "blood covenant" might have come from. In fact, his book contains no sources for any of its contents.

So I've trimmed down the word count given to this alternative idea, and noted that it's the idea of two guys who don't give any evidence. Does anyone contradict this? Gronky (talk) 00:38, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Your comments on the source footnote are pretty unencyclopedic, and neither is the coment "However, neither author gives any evidence for this claim", which you should not (as an editor) write down as fact uncited. What we wrote is that they claim it, and we can back that up with citations, but if the claim is justified or not is not our job to evaluate.

I was aware of the bad scholarliness of Pustelniak et al., that's why I put Henry Clay Trumbull first, whom I would not feel qualified to doubt (and neither should a Wikipedia editor without an authoritative reference, this guy has a honorary degree from Yale and had travelled to the region to do research). The cites on Pustelniak et al simply serve to illustrate that this alternative interpretation still has traction today and hence deserves to be mentioned, because someone might come across it in that context, and then Wikipedia should explain the background for that. (Also, someone is sure to add it back in if it were removed from the article, see my post above). But given its dubious authority, I agree with you that it definitely does not belong in the intro paragraph.

I'm still pretty partial to my original wording of the "Other interpretations" section, and would ask you to re-read it, but I don't find yours to be that much worse that I would counter-edit you on that (except for that comment of yours judging the source).

I also want to commend you for taking the time to actually edit the article, as opposed to the various busy bees who do nothing but add tags instead of doing the work of actually fixing things, going as far as to remove undisputed information whose sources are but two mouse clicks away and sometimes can be found in the linked Wikipedia articles. --91.96.124.139 (talk) 13:05, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Checking Sources

When I attempted to research the German version of the saying "blut ist dicker als wasser," I discovered that this was NOT what was written in Reinhard Fuchs. Since no manuscript uses those words, I quoted the exact wording from the earliest complete manuscript.

Regarding the quote from Lydgate, I am unable to locate anything like it in the volumes of the 1908 edition that are online. Searching for the expression given in the Wikipedia article provides nothing earlier than about 2000. Does anyone have a proper citation?

I am unable to find any early printing of John Ray's "Proverbs" titles that contain the expression, or even an expression that means the same thing. Searching for "blood" reveals almost nothing, while searching for "water" provides evidence for the "lead a horse to water" expression but nothing connecting blood and water. Here's the 1678 edition on Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=rnlQoxh95VMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=john+ray+collection+of+english+proverbs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiFtd-ih9nJAhVLcz4KHYVqDTgQ6AEIJTAA#v=snippet&q=thicker&f=false

The earliest reference I find to the modern expression is in Zeluco's "Various Views of Human Nature," where we read "So you see there is little danger of my forgetting them [old friends], and far less my blood relations; for surely blood is thicker than water." (1791 edition, p. 217) The author here appears to use the expression not to compare family to friends, but to compare family to nothing at all. "Thicker than water" appears to be his way of expressing that blood relationships mean something to him.

A search for the expression "thicker than water" in all Google books dating prior to 1800 yields only one source for the expression prior to 1790. That is "A Collection of Scots Proverbs" from 1776 (ed. Allan Ramsay). On page 21 we read "Blood's thicker than water," with no explanation.

This German book of Estonian proverbs from 1780 https://books.google.com/books?id=ZPxJAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA114&dq=%22dicker+als+wasser%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiItL6vlNnJAhUBUj4KHSbNCzkQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22dicker%20als%20wasser%22&f=false is the earliest reference that I am able to find of the German version of the saying.

We need to document our sources better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.112.55.96 (talk) 15:38, 13 December 2015 (UTC)