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From: jeff@rtech.ARPA (Jeff Lichtman)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Semantic Reversals
Message-ID: <177@rtech.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 27-Feb-85 02:58:30 EST
Article-I.D.: rtech.177
Posted: Wed Feb 27 02:58:30 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Mar-85 05:27:38 EST
References: <101@mot.UUCP> <153@sbcs.UUCP> <172@rtech.ARPA>
Organization: Relational Technology, Berkeley CA
Lines: 46

> 
> This is not the origin of the phrase "the exception proves the rule".  The idea
> is that it would be impossible to have an exception to a rule if there were no
> rule.  Fowler's "Modern English Usage" explains this very well, but I can't lay
> my hands on it right now.  I'll post an excerpt at a later time.
> 

Here is what Fowler has to say about "the exception proves the rule":

"'The exception proves the rule', and phrases implying it, are so constantly
introduced in argument, and so much more often with obscuring than with
illuminating effect, that it is necessary to set out its different possible
meanings, viz. (1) the original simple legal sense, (2) the secondary rather
complicated scientific sense, (3) the loose rhetorical sense, (4) the jocular
nonsense, (5) the serious nonsense.  The last of these is the most
objectionable, though (3) and (4) must bear the blame for bringing (5) into
existence by popularizing an easily misunderstood phrase; unfortunately (5)
is much the commonest use.  See POPULARIZED TECHNICALITIES.

"1. 'Special leave is given for men to be out of barracks tonight till 11:00
P.M.'; 'The exception proves the rule' means that this special leave implies
a rule requiring men, except when an exception is made, to be in earlier.  The
value of this in interpreting statutes is plain.  'A rule is not proved by
exceptions unless the exceptions themselves lead one to infer a rule' (Lord
Atkin).  The formula in full is 'exceptio probat regulam in casibus non
exceptis'."

Fowler goes on to give examples and explanations of 2 through 5.  I won't
give them here because I am lazy and you probably don't want to read all of it.

Fowler's "Modern English Usage" is a valuable and entertaining book.  I enjoy
paging through it and reading random entries.  It's somewhat out of date, but
many of the ideas are still useful.  Fowler is at his best when making fine
distinctions ("Fatalism says: every event is pre-ordained; You cannot act as
you will, but only in the pre-ordained way.  Determinism says: You can act
(barring obstacles) as you will; but then you cannot will as you will; your
will is determined by a complex of antecedents the interaction of which makes
you unable to choose any but the one course."), and when he gets sarcastic
("... the fastidious people, if they are foolish, get excited and talk of
ignorance and solecisms, and are laughed at as pedants; or, if they are wise,
say no more about it and wait.").  The book's main weaknesses are a chaotic
method of naming the entries and a reliance on the rules of Latin to prove
things about English.
-- 
Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
aka Swazoo Koolak