While the original meaning of proof might have been to test, I think in terms of common usage, Ive found it to mean that if a stated hypothetical can be regarded as an exception, then the rule is proved.
ie:
Person A: All blanks are blank
Person B: <some wildly implausible sequence of events that leads to blanks not being blank>
Person A: Thats the exception that proves the rule.
ie: that the only cases where blanks are not blank can be counted as exceptions and thus, the rule is generally sound.
Wow, that’s one heck of a typo in Cecil’s reply there. The speech is the Pro Balbo, and since that’s the ablative form of the guy’s name, Cicero was actually defending Balbus. Whom would I contact about getting that fixed?
Fowler, in Modern English Usage , lists five meanings for “the exception proves the rule”:
the original simple legal sense
the secondary rather complicated scientific sense
the loose rhetorical sense
the jocular nonsense
the serious nonsense.
The original simple legal sense is that the existence of an exception to a rule proves that the rule exists. He gives as an example, “Special leave is given for men to be out of barracks tonight till 11 p.m.,” which implies a rule that men are to be in barracks earlier but for the exception.
None of the other definitions corresponds with the idea that the exception tests the rule. I won’t go into them here - the book is widely available, so anyone who is interested can look it up.
Fowler says the original Latin phrase is exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis .
> It doesn’t help that he’s a very literal, linear thinker, destined to one day
> become an engineer or architect, and I’m a rather “floral” thinker. We both
> speak English, nominally, except he speaks the “Literalease” and I
> speak “Metaphor and Allegory” dialects.
May I make a suggestion? I suggest you simply quit using the two expressions. They aren’t very useful sayings, and there’s ultimately no way to defend them if you really carefully analyze them. If someone is going to carefully analyze every statement you make, you have no chance of persuading them that these are logical statements with a clear meaning.
Which would be my point exactly. I communicate most often via floral prose, which does not often stand under careful analysis. My points are often salient, and often identical in the end to those arrived at by logic, but the way in which I arrive at them is often not always “logical.” (I was raised by a Vygotskyast, not a Piagetian, what can I say?) It’s exactly those folks who can “carefully analyze every statement” I make and can then reword them or illustrate a clear logical path, making them into “logical statements with a clear meaning” whose help I was asking for in the OP.
In this case, I explained how this particular difficulty I have is making is hard for me to explain what turned out to be two rather obscure metaphors to my son. (Well, one, anyway. I think the custom one is pretty well wrapped up.)
Yes, I’m asking for a particular skill here. One that I don’t have (or at least it takes me a tortuously long time to do.) Asking me to be logicial in a thread which started by me saying I have trouble writing/speaking in a literal and logical fashion seems a little snarky. I appreciate the advice, as I appreciate all advice, assuming it comes from a place of compassion and concern, but I just wanted to let you know why I can’t follow it.
Now that you bring this up, I seem to recall that “bullet-proof” was originally applied to plate armor, and meant that it had been tested by actually firing a musket at the breastplate.
Generally speaking, when you hear someone say, “the exception…” he’s trying to hornswoggle you, and when you hear, “a custom more…” someone is trying to impress you by quoting Ol’ Will. Among gentle people, it is not necessary for you, the listener, to point this out. Usually, a simple smirk will do. After all, the speaker knows he’s bullshitting, and so do you.
However, if the other person is actually using “the exception…” to try to put one over on you, and sticks to his guns after you’ve said, “Balderdash,” just ask him to explain that exception stuff. He’ll look foolish in the attempt.