Um, well, “carrot & stick” alluded to the practice of tying a carrot (or some other desirable edible) to the end of a stick on a string, in order to dangle it in front of a draft animal to bring about a sort of Tantalus-like effort on the part of the animal to eat it, and thereby move forward voluntarily and without coercion.
Who knows if it works or is only folkloric, in any case the shorthand expression has been re-analysed to mean alternation (or a choice) between chastisement (stick) and reward (carrot, though frankly why a “carrot” of all things should be an allegory for a reward is unobvious to me).
Um, well, “carrot & stick” alluded to the practice of tying a carrot (or some other desirable edible) to the end of a stick on a string, in order to dangle it in front of a draft animal to bring about a sort of Tantalus-like effort on the part of the animal to eat it, and thereby move forward voluntarily and without coercion.
Who knows if it works or is only folkloric, in any case the shorthand expression has been re-analysed to mean alternation (or a choice) between chastisement (stick) and reward (carrot, though frankly why a “carrot” of all things should be an allegory for a reward is unobvious to me).