Better to be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

[bilbous]

Isn't it grand how ambiguous language can be?

[bilbous]

If the saying really means if you are going to suffer for something you didn't do you might as well do it, it is a really crummy saying.  Here is a person who suffered from something she didn't do, should she then go and do it now?

[zanzibar]

The explanation connected to British law does make more sense.

[emeraldfool]

Might just as well be punished for a big misdeed as a small one. For example, I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb and have a third piece of cake--I've gone off my diet anyhow. Already a proverb in John Ray's 1678 collection, this expression alludes to the old punishment for stealing sheep, which was hanging no matter what the age or size of the animal.

It's not saying that you should live up to what you're accused for, it's saying that if you're guilty of something, you might as well get the most out of it if the punishment's the same. In the example given it's a woman breaking her diet - she's already had two pieces of cake, and totally screwed over her diet, so it wouldn't make a difference if she had another. She's going to have to start over either way (i.e. be hanged).

But remember this is a metaphor. It means different things to different people, regardless of what the writer initially meant by it.

[bilbous]

Where I come from hanging is a crime but not always punishable if successful done on oneself.

As for what it means, well that is another nifty thing about language, meanings change with the times so that such an expression could come to mean something entirely different than it originally meant.

Oh and it is better still from the criminals perspective to get away with it. Darn them guys!

[Cherppow]

Hi,

Well, my opinion is heavily biased; To do as little crime as possible, regardless of the punishment or accusations. Unlike the modern street "wisdom" makes you think, rules were not made to be broken, they were made to protect You.

Nobody's perfect though, we all make mistakes. It's whether we go "Woo! I stole a candy! I'm so cool!" or "Oh no, I stole a candy... I'm so sorry." that defines what kind of men we really are.

What comes to Nurahk's post:

"If you have to get wet, may aswell go swimming"

I'd say it's up to everyone to decide for themselves. There's no law against swimming.

[Parallo]

A world without something to hold people back is a world I don't want to live in. I know people that would, if laws didn't exist, kill me and I know for a fact that there are millions of others that would be dead as well. Law protects the people that don't need to be told what to do from the people that do.

[lordraleigh]

Laws usually exist to protect the interests of their creators first, of their supporters second and of the people as a whole third.

If no one broke rules and questioned things, we would still be under the hold of the Catolic Church and of their "truth" and believe that the Earth is flat.

[Parallo]

Breaking rules and question things are quite different things. You thing that law-abiding scientists constantly questioning things are on a par with anarchists?

[lordraleigh]

Breaking rules and question things are quite different things. You thing that law-abiding scientists constantly questioning things are on a par with anarchists?

Galileo Galilei almost was killed by breaking the rule that: "The Sun turns around the Earth because everything that the Church says is Truth".

Many rules have second intentions on their making that are anything but altruistic.

[Parallo]

Many are but by no means are the majority. The approach that you are taking is that they all are.

[lordraleigh]

Neither all rules are acceptable and should be respected and obeyed without question as they all are "made to protect you".

Laws, rules, etc will meet exceptions even when they are created with good intentions and sometimes make things as Law X Justice instead of Law and Justice.

[Parallo]

Was it said that they all were? You saw rules and broken in the same sentence and lept to project you politic views on all of us.

[eldoth_terevan]

Don't stick paperclips into light sockets. That's a good rule, and it is meant to protect you.

[Narure]

If you consider doing that you probably dont deserve to be protected. A right to education is all thats needed.