@@FirstaccountGotcensored "This bunch of apples is spoiling due us putting them in a rotten pot, and then moving them into a still bad pot, and pissing on it from time to time. Maybe we should move them into a better pot, and put in a few agents to stop more from spoiling." "Reverse racism is racism."
"A jack of all trades, but a master of none... is oftentimes better than a master of one." It's actually a cautionary statement about overspecialization, or too narrow of focus. In many cases, the phrases are truncated in a way that completely flips the original intent.
There is a single word that exemplifies this idea: moot. People will say, "That's a moot point," when they mean it's a point that should be disregarded or already resolved. That literally the opposite of the real definition, though: subject to debate, dispute, or uncertainty. The definition is now slowly changing because of how people constantly misuse it.
"The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb" Relationships you choose, vs those you don't. What people refer to as "blood" is actually the water in the original phrase.
'the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb’ ia the way i heard it, to be taken as the bond between friends can sometimes transcend family ties.
I think a lot of these have the commonality that the natural usage of the phrase is something that we culturally just don’t think is true. “A few bad apples ruins the bunch” is usually taken to mean that a few bad actors can effectively characterize a whole group which is precisely something that our culture is generally against, as such, our usage of the term becomes instead a sort of rhetorical reference to a bad argument in order to discredit those claiming that people are in essence “bad apples spoiling the whole bunch”
'Blood is thicker than water' is actually 'the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb', which mean the total opposite of each other. Think about it 'Blood is thicker than water' makes 0 sense....what does the water have to do with anything?
That's my favorite. It literally means that family are the people who love you, not necessarily your genetic family. We somehow twisted that into the opposite of it's intended meaning.
@taxirobot7219 This is true! (What you said, I mean). A variation of the quote dates back to 1180, "ouch hoer ich sagen, das sippe blůt von wazzere niht verdirbet" trnsl: "I also hear it said that kin-blood is not spoiled by water" (Heinrich der Glîchezære). The quote used with the same meaning we associate it with today dates back to 1789, "and far less my blood relations; for surely blood is thicker than water" (John Moore). The first to claim that the quote was "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb" was actually Albert Jack and Richard Pustelniak in the 1990s, neither of whom were able to provide any sources
It is worth noting that there is an Arabic proverb that goes something along the lines of "The blood of the covenant is thicker than a mothers milk," but this proverb of course evolved seperately from the English proverb, and was first observed in English writing in 1893
Okay but the exeption proving the rule isnt a way to just get out of being wrong. Acknowledging there is an acception literally proves you are acknowledging the rule
I hate to think it, but could the old Osmonds song "One Bad Apple (Don't Spoil the Whole Bunch)" actually have caused this problem? The fact that such a terrible song could be so culturally influential... 😞
Just coz someone is wrong in one small percentage of the cases doesnt mean he/she is wrong the other 90 % of the time. Nowadays people are too hang out on the exceptions like they are more valid than the majority of the outcomes. If you have an exception you must look at WHAT'S DIFFERENT, not to think you somehow disproved the validity of the 90 % outcomes lol.
Proverbs of wisdom are generally not useful for critical thinking in the first place, to be fair. In fact, theyre the exact opposite of critical, made to be easily memorized and rhetorically simple. You can make anything sound "wise." The early bird gets the worm, but slow and steady always wins the race. Clothes make the man, but you shouldnt judge a book by its cover. Great minds think alike, but fools seldom differ. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.
Prove is synonymous with test. for instance the military uses proving grounds to test weapons and soldiers. So saying the exception proves the rule means that the exception is testing the rule to see if it is still true. The saying is accurate.
If there's a STATED exception to a STATED rule, then yes, the exception proves the rule. Otherwise, the exception IS the rule (i.e., "'i' before 'e' escept after c, and only in neighbor and weigh' is the "rule," but the other way around is far more common, so the exception IS the rule)
The origin of the saying "the exception proves the rule" is, timewise, before the narrowing and alteration of the definition of the word "prove", from "test" to "be sufficient evidence and reasoning to make certain to be true". So "the exception proves the rule" is *actually* saying "the exception *tests* the rule" - for instance, a rule that says pies must be sweet would be proved (that is, tested) by the existence of quiche, which is a type of savoury flan, and flans are a type of pie. An example of the archaic use of the word "prove" is in how we talk about alcohol concentration - "proof": it "proves to" (i.e. tests to come out to) a certain concentration. Also, the saying is talking not about prescriptive rules (the "thou shalt" kind of rules), but *descriptive* rules (the "all dogs are animals" kind of rules). So, really, "the exception proves the rule" is technically an early description of how one does proper science - you build a rule, then go looking for exceptions to see whether the rule holds up in all cases.
This is entirely wrong. While "prove" did mean test, the phrase actually comes from a Latin rhetoric/logic argument (often attributed to Cicero) "Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis." This was translated into English in the 17th century as "the exception proves the rule [is true] in cases not excepted." More simply, "exceptions prove that the rule *exists*" A sign that says "free parking only on Sundays" logically leads one to believe as true that parking costs money on all other days.
Depends. Some exceptions DO prove rules. Most of the time when I hear people speak about that fact it’s when the exception is very obviously proving the rule.
