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Q: What is saying one thing but doing another?
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(something) is one thing, (something else) is (quite) another
While it may be acceptable to do something, that does not make it acceptable to do something else that is much more extreme or complicated than the first. Asking us to stay an extra hour each evening to finish a project is one thing, but demanding we work every weekend without overtime pay or else risk being fired is quite another. Expressing your affection for someone you’ve started dating is one thing; bombarding them with declarations of love after just a few days is another. Occasional sadness is one thing, but this prolonged, intense depression you’ve been experiencing is quite another.
it’s one thing to (do something), it’s another to (do something else)
While it may be acceptable to do something, that does not make it acceptable to do something that is much more extreme or complicated than the first thing. It’s one thing asking us to stay an extra hour each evening to finish a project, but it’s quite another to demand we work every weekend without overtime or else risk being fired. It’s one thing to express your affection for someone you’ve started dating. It’s another to bombard them with declarations of love after just a few days.
it’s one thing to (do sth), it’s another thing to (do sth else)
While it may be acceptable to do something, that does not make it acceptable to do something that is much more extreme or complicated than the first. It’s one thing asking us to stay an extra hour each evening to finish a project, but it’s another thing to demand we work every weekend without overtime pay or else risk being fired. It’s one thing to express your affection for someone you’ve started dating; it’s quite another thing to bombard them with declarations of love after just a few days.
it’s one thing to (do sth), it’s quite another to (do sth else)
While it may be acceptable to do something, that does not make it acceptable to do something that is much more extreme or complicated than the first. It’s one thing asking us to stay an extra hour each evening to finish a project, but it’s quite another to demand we work every weekend without overtime pay or else risk being fired. It’s one thing to express your affection for someone you’ve started dating; it’s quite another to bombard them with declarations of love after just a few days.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2022 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
it’s ˌone thing to do ˈA, it’s (quite) aˌnother (thing) to do ˈB
,
A is ˈone thing, B is (quite) aˈnother
used for saying that you find the first thing acceptable or possible but the second thing definitely unacceptable or impossible: It’s one thing to write a short article; it’s quite another to write a whole book on the subject. ♢ Romance is one thing, marriage is quite another.
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
- it’s one thing to (do sth), it’s another thing to (do sth else)
- it’s one thing to (do sth), it’s quite another to (do sth else)
- (something) is one thing, (something else) is (quite) another
- it’s one thing to (do something), it’s another to (do something else)
- something else entirely
- be in step (with someone or something)
- whip something into shape
- knock (someone or something) into shape
- lick (someone or something) into shape
- lick something into shape
Research in the psychology of attitudes reveals why people say one thing, but do another.
The word for when someone says one thing but does another is hypocrisy.
But why are people often so hypocritical?
It’s only natural to think a person’s attitudes and behaviours are directly related.
If someone says, while truly believing it, that they’re not a racist, you’d expect them to behave consistently with that statement.
Despite this, psychologists have found that the link between a person’s attitudes and their behaviours is not always that strong.
People frequently say one thing but do another.
In fact, people have a nasty habit of saying one thing and then doing the exact opposite, even with the best of intentions.
You see it all the time:
- People say they’re worried about global warming and yet they drive around in a big gas guzzler.
- They say that money isn’t their God, yet they work all the hours.
- They say they want to be fit but they don’t do any exercise.
Say one thing, do another
The discovery of the extent of people’s blatant hypocrisy goes back to 1930s America and the work of a Stanford sociology professor, Richard LaPiere (LaPiere, 1934).
In the early 30s he was on a tour across California with some close friends who happened to be Chinese.
LaPiere was worried that they would encounter problems finding welcoming restaurants and hotels because of his Chinese friends.
At that time in the US there had been lots of stories in the media about how prejudiced people were against Chinese people.
LaPiere and his friends were, therefore, pleasantly surprised to find that out of the 128 restaurants and hotels they visited, all but one served them courteously.
Nowadays the fact that one place refused to serve them would rightly be considered an outrage – but those were different times.
So it sounds like a happy ending: perhaps the papers had just exaggerated people’s negative attitudes towards Chinese people?
The gap between attitudes and behaviour
But when LaPiere got home he started to wonder why there was such a gap between what the newspapers were reporting about people’s attitudes and their actual behaviour.
Why do people say one thing, then do another?
To check this out he decided to send out a questionnaire to the restaurants and hotels they had visited along with other similar places in the area.
The questionnaire asked the owners about their attitudes, with the most important question being: “Will you accept members of the Chinese race in your establishment?”
The answers they could give were:
- Yes.
- No.
- Depends upon the circumstances.
Incredibly, 90 percent of respondents answered, no, they wouldn’t accept members of the Chinese race into their establishments.
Imagine LaPiere’s surprise when he looked at the results.
People genuinely did say one thing and do the complete reverse.
They didn’t even select ‘it depends’.
What on Earth was going on?
Problems with the study
LaPiere himself argued that the problem lay in the questionnaire.
The questions themselves cannot represent reality in all its confusing glory.
What probably happened when people were asked if they accept Chinese people was that they conjured up a highly prejudiced view of the Chinese which bore little relation with what they were presented with in reality.
Here was a polite, well-dressed, well-off couple in the company of a Stanford University professor.
Not the rude, job-stealing, yobbish stereotype they had in mind when they answered the questionnaire.
This study has actually been subsequently criticised for all sorts of reasons.
Nevertheless its main finding – that people say one thing and do another in many situations – has been backed up by countless later studies, although in more sophisticated fashion.
The question is: why?
Snapshot of prejudices
Many psychologists effectively agree with LaPiere that it all depends on how you ask the questions and what stereotypes people are currently imagining when they give their answers.
In some ways an attitude is like a snapshot of the prejudices the respondent has available to memory just at the moment they are questioned.
This has led to a whole raft of studies and theories searching for connections between people’s attitudes and their behaviour.
Many a lengthy tome has been dedicated to explaining the divergence.
Some of the factors that have been found important are:
- Social norms.
- Accessibility of the attitude.
- Perceived control over behaviour.
Despite these findings, the picture is extremely complicated and frustratingly inconclusive.
Perhaps as a result interest in this area has been waning amongst psychologists.
The exact way in which people’s attitudes and behaviour are connected remains a mystery.
All we can say with certainty is that people are frequently extremely inconsistent.
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I’ve just used this expression in the sentences below, and I wonder if the use of it can be somewhat misleading. More specifically, I’m talking about the “to” preceding “fully appreciate”.
I’ve used it to mean “in order to”, but the usual pattern of this expression seems to lead the listener to another interpretation.
“It is one thing to passively learn about … but to fully appreciate how and when … is quite another”.
Here, the “to” is used to form a subject noun phrase instead.
What’s your take on this?
“It is one thing to passively learn about all those various commands in JavaScript by poring over online materials. But to fully appreciate how and when to use each one, I need to try them out in my own code and have them corrected by someone in the know.”
asked Dec 14, 2015 at 17:15
2
’Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall. (Measure for Measure 2.1.17–18)
The coordinate pairing of infinitives in this construction is so well established that a reader is likely to reach the end of your first sentence waiting for the other shoe to drop. Your then beginning the second with a to infinitive of purpose is thus a kind of garden path. It is grammatically perfectly correct, but not as foolproof for your reader as you can and should make it.
answered Dec 14, 2015 at 17:35
Brian DonovanBrian Donovan
16.1k3 gold badges34 silver badges72 bronze badges
«It is one thing to (blank), but another to (blank)» is a comparative structure.
Taking a cue from your example, it would make more sense to say something like «It is one thing to learn passively, but another to understand the material.»
It’s used specifically when you’re comparing two things, with the second of them being the more important half of the pairing. (Macmillan)
answered Dec 14, 2015 at 18:01
afryafry
1338 bronze badges
It seems that you want to use unsuccessfully two constructions combined
“It is one thing to passively learn about all those various commands in JavaScript by poring over online materials. However, in order to fully appreciate how and when to use each one, I need to try them out in my own code and have them corrected by someone in the know.”
“It is one thing to passively learn about all those various commands in JavaScript by poring over online materials, but to fully appreciate how and when to use each one, I need to try them out in my own code and have them corrected by someone in the know.”
You are using a shortcut for no particular reason.
First solution is ok. It gives you a rest after one long sentence for approaching another long sentence.
Second one is stressing the importance of the second sentence, you want a reader to concentrate and grasp the complete meaning, compare two choices you are trying to explain. You are building a momentum.
It is up to you which one you like better, but your solution is really neither one nor the other.
answered Dec 14, 2015 at 21:20
It is one thing to X but another to Y
Often means things like:
- X may be good, but Y is much better (or: X may be bad, but Y is much worse)
- Don’t mistake X for Y
- Don’t overestimate X / let X impress you
- Don’t underestimate or disregard Y
The author of your example sentence implies that although «passively learn[ing] about all of those various commands» may be worthwhile by itself, it can lead you to think you understand more than you really do, and you won’t truly understand until you try out all those various commands yourself. In other words, you can’t expect to be successful if you only rely on passive learning.
Also, «in order to» is implied in your example sentence. It makes perfect sense when inserted into the sentence:
It is one thing to passively learn about all those various commands … but in order to fully appreciate how and when to use each one, I need to try them out in my own code.
answered Dec 28, 2018 at 21:04
AndyAndy
1487 bronze badges
First, it is always awkward to have anything between to and the infinitive as we were told in grammar school. Secondly, the comparison should form a somewhat sharp contrast rather than two similar but slightly different things. My example is this: «It is one thing for a person to own what he has created; it is another for him to stop others from copying it.»
answered Dec 28, 2018 at 5:55
As integrous as I try to be, even I may say one thing and do another. For the longest time, I thought the one thing I would like to have etched in my gravestone would be the words, “Here lies a man who kept his words and lived by them.” Yet, even I can see that even I fall short, if I am able to see myself objectively. This leaves you wondering, “Why people say one thing and do another?”
The answer is far more complex than you might think. People are not as they appear, ever. You can have a general sense of how someone is, but you will never know everything which comprises any person you think you know, even if you know their entire backstory. You can never know what’s going on in someone else’s head.
All of us are a jumbled mess of incongruencies. Living, breathing contradictions. As hard as you might try to set an example of keeping your word, of being congruent, living a life in harmony with the words you speak, the contracts you make, still you falter, even if you can’t see it at the time (and few of us can see it due to the limitation(s) of our perspective in the moment).
Our lives are filled with living contradictions with our words, our agreements, and our lives.
There are contradictions in the words we say, like, “I’ll be there at four,” and you show up at 3:55 or 4:05. “I will pick up the items on your list from the store,” but you forget to get the milk which was on the list.
Every once and a while, even with the best intentions, we fall short of the words we speak. Unintentionally, life prevents us from being perfectly in alignment with the words we speak.
Contradictions in the contracts we make. You agree to make your payments on time, yet every so often, you are late and incur a late fee, get turned into collections, file bankruptcy, lose your car, or your house.
Some people go so far as to pledge their love and allegiance to another in marriage and end up getting a divorce.
Contradictions in the life we lead, like you see someone who lives their life with integrity, vowing never to engage in self-harm, yet he or she stuffs their mouths with unhealthy food and is overweight.
Or there are heavy people who do not exercise, yet wear sports apparel which contradicts their lifestyle.
Someone could live their lives in complete and utter chaos, but their home is immaculate.
The list goes on and on, as our lives demonstrate that we are not what we say or think we are.
Someone might be saying that they would never do or say a thing, while they are doing the very thing they say they would never do.
Some people go so far as to accuse you of doing something they are actively doing in the moment. If that isn’t confusing, I don’t know what is.
Having the knowledge of these life incongruencies can help you find the triggers which create the contradictions in your life.
You see yourself as a kind and loving person, yet you judge and criticize others, or could care less about people who are not intimately associated with you.
Now that you know that this is a contradiction in your life, you can take the steps necessary to either make the changes or redefine your perception of yourself to include the variations.
This is the decision made by those who desire to live a life of alignment or coherence.
These are the people who self-evaluate and make the necessary adjustments in their lives to be less of a human contradiction in an effort to live a harmonious lifestyle.
Do you know people say one thing and do another? Are you one of them?
I think if you are honest, you will find that you are. We all are to some degree or another.