{"id":2773,"date":"2003-06-30T11:51:10","date_gmt":"2003-06-30T06:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alpha.ravikiran.com\/blog\/2003\/06\/30\/exceptions-dont-prove-the-rule\/"},"modified":"2003-06-30T11:51:10","modified_gmt":"2003-06-30T06:21:10","slug":"exceptions-dont-prove-the-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/vintage\/200306\/exceptions-dont-prove-the-rule\/","title":{"rendered":"Exceptions don&#8217;t prove the rule"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The adage &#8220;Exceptions prove the rule&#8221; is one of the silliest I&#8217;ve heard. It is too obviously illogical and I can&#8217;t think of a situation where it actually makes sense. So I was happy to learn that it is actually a backward compatibility issue. <\/p>\n<p>Long long ago,<i> &#8220;to prove&#8221;<\/i> meant <i>&#8220;to test&#8221;<\/i>.  Then, &#8220;Exceptions <i>prove<\/i> the rule&#8221; meant,  &#8220;Exceptions <i>test<\/i> the rule&#8221;.  The latter makes perfect sense, but unfortunately lacks the epigrammatic quality that the former has acquired.<\/p>\n<p>There are many other phrases and usages based on the original sense of &#8220;prove&#8221;, but their meaning hasn&#8217;t changed so drastically.<\/p>\n<ul><\/p>\n<li \/>The <i>proof <\/i> of the pudding is in the eating\n<li \/><i>Prooving<\/i> ring (where they test cars)\n<li \/>Fool<i>proof<\/i> <\/ul>\n<p>It was such a minor change in usage. From &#8220;to test&#8221; to &#8220;to pass the test&#8221;, but it caused an increase in the amount of Nonsensical Particulate Matter floating in the air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The adage &#8220;Exceptions prove the rule&#8221; is one of the silliest I&#8217;ve heard. It is too obviously illogical and I can&#8217;t think of a situation where it actually makes sense. So I was happy to learn that it is actually a backward compatibility issue. Long long ago, &#8220;to prove&#8221; meant &#8220;to test&#8221;. Then, &#8220;Exceptions prove [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2773"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}