"Do not wave stick when trying to catch dog"
About this Quote
Advice that sounds like a fortune cookie until you picture the scene: you, eager and a little panicked, brandishing a stick at the exact moment you want a dog to come closer. Earl Derr Biggers packages a behavioral truth in busted grammar and plain sight imagery. The line works because it exposes a specific human glitch: we often telegraph threat while asking for trust.
Biggers, a popular novelist best known for the Charlie Chan mysteries, wrote in an era when “common sense” maxims traveled easily across pulp pages, stage dialogue, and the emerging mass media. The phrasing feels like something overheard rather than authored, which is its secret weapon. It smuggles in authority by pretending not to have any. Not “one should avoid contradictory signals,” but “don’t wave a stick.” Concrete, visual, impossible to misread.
The subtext is about power. A stick is leverage, a symbol of control, even if you swear you don’t mean it that way. Waving it announces dominance, impatience, maybe fear. The dog, exquisitely tuned to tone and posture, reads the truth you’re trying to hide: your body is saying “danger” louder than your mouth says “come here.” Swap in any modern equivalent - a manager “checking in” with a spreadsheet like a weapon, a politician reaching for unity while loading insults, a friend asking for honesty while bracing to punish it - and the proverb lands.
It’s also a small moral about self-awareness: if you want connection, disarm first. Dogs aren’t the only ones who flinch at mixed signals.
Biggers, a popular novelist best known for the Charlie Chan mysteries, wrote in an era when “common sense” maxims traveled easily across pulp pages, stage dialogue, and the emerging mass media. The phrasing feels like something overheard rather than authored, which is its secret weapon. It smuggles in authority by pretending not to have any. Not “one should avoid contradictory signals,” but “don’t wave a stick.” Concrete, visual, impossible to misread.
The subtext is about power. A stick is leverage, a symbol of control, even if you swear you don’t mean it that way. Waving it announces dominance, impatience, maybe fear. The dog, exquisitely tuned to tone and posture, reads the truth you’re trying to hide: your body is saying “danger” louder than your mouth says “come here.” Swap in any modern equivalent - a manager “checking in” with a spreadsheet like a weapon, a politician reaching for unity while loading insults, a friend asking for honesty while bracing to punish it - and the proverb lands.
It’s also a small moral about self-awareness: if you want connection, disarm first. Dogs aren’t the only ones who flinch at mixed signals.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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