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Exceptio probat regulam -The exception proves the rule.
Did I miss something along the way? I learned that one as
"The exception tests the rule" - if it couldn't account for the apparent exception, the rule didn't hold...
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Yes -- prove being a synonym for test, as in the phrase proving grounds.
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prove being a synonym for test, as in the phrase proving grounds
Sure, but that's not the way it's generally interpreted in the modern parlance. Usually it's taken as meaning "demonstrates the validity of," which is something else entirely.
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Allo Faldage,
I don't understand the Rather than die of hunger, I'd sooner eat a roast. maxim.
Does the roast have any particular meaning? I must be misunderstanding something because the way I read it, it says "I'd rather eat meat than starve" and that is pretty self evident cause we eat every day.
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Sure, but that's not the way it's generally interpreted in the modern parlance. Agreed that what you note is the general interpretation. Also agreed that the statement, when so interpreted, is entirely different -- and, I'd think, is untrue. In other words, I'm suggesting that the "general interpretation" perverts the meaning of the maxim. Bartleby, http://www.bartleby.com/68/30/2330.html more or less supports the reading I gave above. But on further LIU I suspect that the original meaning is completely different. Cicero: Quod si exceptio facit ne liceat, ubi necesse est licere, or roughly, [help me here, faldage] "That which a special provision makes illegal in some circumstances, is thus [by inference] shown to be legal in all other circumstances." There are old English law cases that express this as Exceptio probat regulam de rebus non exceptis ("The exception proves [confirms] the rule so far as concerns the matters not excepted.")
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An endless list -- but among my favorites:
When a father helps a son, both smile; when a son must help his father, both cry.
When a young man marries, he divorces his mother.
With little children, little troubles; with big children, big troubles.
A man is not honest just because he has had no chance to steal.
A saloon can't corrupt a good man, and a synagogue can't reform a bad one.
If triangles had a God, He would have three sides.
"For instance" is not proof.
Safeguarding a girl in love is harder than guarding a sackful of fleas.
A rabbi whose congregation doesn't want to run him out of town isn't a rabbi; and a rabbi whose congregation does run him out of town isn't a man.
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Max, I can't vouch for these as being NZ Maaori, but so says the source in which I found them:
Little dogs make the most noise.
No one needs help to get into trouble.
An obedient wife commands her man.
Idle young men become unhappy old men.
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veteran
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I don't know how this is said in other languages, but my grandpa used to tell me
"Shoot fer the moon if ya do hit a potato."
I've always liked it.
k
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It does seem rather self evident, doesn't it? But then so does the mamzr one. The libe iz vi putr has me scratching my head.
I've heard it explained on some obscure philological grounds that the roast in question was a pork roast, but I'm not sure I believe the argument. The conclusion makes sense just all by itself; it says that it's OK to break kosher rather than starve. I remember a scene from one of the myriad Entebbe movies that came out after the successful raid in which a young woman was desperately trying to convince her very orthodox grandfather that it said in the Torah that it was OK to eat nonkosher if the alternative was starving to death.
On the other hand, it might just be a response to something like, "I sure don't want to go to that little brat's bar mitzvah. I'd rather just stay at home and watch TV."
On the third hand, that shoyn besr might not be best translated with "I'd rather".
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