SIR: How does the exception prove the rule? Only your patience and good humor permit me to ask this question, for I should be able to figure it out for myself, but I haven't been satisfied with my answers. - William W.
ANSWER: A standard answer is that the fact of an exception proves there must be a rule, but clearly you're too smart to fall for that.So let's turn to an enlightening answer given some years ago by John Ciardi, who called the saying "a ridiculous proposition."
The whole thing, he said, goes back to a mistranslation of the Latin phrase, exceptio probat regum, which does not mean "the exception proves the rule" but "the exception probes the rule," and "probe" should be understood as "disproves." Thus, if the probe reveals an exception, the rule is invalid. "This rendering of probat as `proves,' "Ciardi wrote, "has a fair claim to first dishonors as the most mind-fuddling mistranslation in history." No wonder you weren't satisfied with your answers.
SIR: I am continually puzzled by the phrase, "a new beginning." Aren't all beginnings new? I've never heard of an old beginning. - Dorothy H.
ANSWER: But suppose you make a beginning at solving a problem or building a house or whatever, and then give it up. Later you make another beginning, and another, and another. Each would be a "new beginning," wouldn't it? Let's don't quibble; let's just give thanks for new beginnings.
SIR: It has become somewhat of a fad to say "most importantly," as in "most importantly, it is next to impossible to think straight." Is this correct or should it be "most important"? - P.S.
ANSWER: I believe that fad has passed its peak and a good thing; it always sounded phony. Besides, "importantly" is an adverb, and it's hard to find any verb, adjective or other adverb in the sentence that it could modify. But "important," an adjective, fits nicely with the theory that it's part of an elliptical phrase, "what is most important."
PUZZLED QUESTION of the week, from Mary E.:
"I heard a woman say that she and a former friend were on such bad terms that whenever they passed each other on the street, they `had to turn the other cheek.' Have I been missing something about cheek-turning?"
Send questions, comments, and good and bad examples to Lydel Sims, Watch Your Language, P.O. Box 161280, Memphis, TN 38186. If you quote a book, please give author, title and page number. Sorry, but questions can be answered only through this column.
Lydel Sims of The Commercial Appeal in Memphis writes this column weekly.