Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site rtech.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!amdahl!rtech!jeff 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 It's somewhat out of date, but many of the ideas are still useful.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