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Hotmale Posted 10 years ago
Vocabulary

Merchant-chief

Hello, could you please tell me who is a merchant-chief?
I cannot find the explanation in any of my dictionaries.

"Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents ...."

Thank you
  

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9 Answers
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What is the source of your quotation?
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It's John Watson's quote.
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More details, please.

I googled 'John Watson' and got 7,680,000 hits.
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My best guess is 'store boss' or 'shop manager'.

The title of the book would have been helpful.
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The title of the book is: Behaviorism (Revised edition)


I've asked this question not only because I cannot find the word in any dictionary, but also because it is translated into Polish as "political leader".
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I think that either there is a typo or that the writer has misunderstood the children's chant 'Rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief', which, in some versions has the words 'merchant, chief'.
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Thank you Fivejedjon. I don't think it's a typo. Watson published his "Behaviorism" in 1930 and if it were a typo, it would have been corrected. In every source I've checked it's "merchant-chief".
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I came across this text because I sing in a Barbershop quartet and it appears in "Coney Island Baby" when I noticed that "Merchant" and "Chief" had no comma between them. I did some research and the original text comes from a British nursery rhyme "Tinker, Tailor" with the text:

Tinker, Tailor,
Soldier, Sailor,
Rich Man, Poor Man,
Beggar Man, Thief.

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