Three Levels of Understanding

[Jonathan Lighter]

As a member of the Pseudosophisticate community, I resent your implication that the Pseudosophisticated interpretation of the saying is "wrong," unless you mean "wrong" in its more appropriate sense of "different."

Many of us arrived at the interpretation in question through recognition of the fact that the saying, as generally interpreted not by legal scholars but by the lay public, is thoroughly illogical.  You will, no doubt, have observed Unsophisticates saying, "That's the exception that proves the rule" with that creepy finality that signifies only "I'm the one who's right, Poindexter. Trouble me no more with your Socratic Logic."

Pseudosophisticates reason - using that same despised logic - that accepting "prove" in its old and contextually appropriate meaning of "test" turns a bland anti-intellectual comeback into a rational and true statement that affords the further advantage of suggesting a constructive re-evaluation of the accuracy of the received "rule."

This skeptical attitude, we argue, has provided the foundation of all modern enquiry. What's more, the Pseudosophisticated interpretation need not justify itself through dubious historical "evidence" or legalistic mumbo-jumbo. Instead, common sense and ordinary word usage justify it.

Perhaps I may be forgiven for observing that America's Pseudosophisticates are among the nation's most deep-seeded and least appreciated intellectual resources.  Despite the attacks of Librarian Shapiro, we mean to keep it that way.

J "P" L








Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Fred Shapiro
Subject: Three Levels of Understanding
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The recent Duane Campbell "tree falls in the forest" posting reminds me of
a theory I have often toyed with. (I don't mean to say that Mr.
Campbell exactly illustrates the theory, his posting just reminds
of the theory.)

I find that, with regard to quotation origins and word origins, there are
often three levels of understanding:

1. The man-in-the-street (or woman-in-the-street) understanding, which is
usually erroneous.

2. The more sophisticated explanation found in reference works and
writings about language, which often proclaim superiority over the
erroneous first-level explanation. Curiously, though, the second-level
explanation is often wrong too.

3. The truthful explanation unearthed through original research.
(Curiously, the third-level explanation is sometimes the same as the
first-level understanding.)

Example: the phrase "the exception proves the rule." The
man-in-the-street understanding is that this, illogically, means that an
exception to a rule strengthens the evidence for the rule. The
second-level, pseudo-sophisticated explanation is that "proves" in this
expression has an archaic meaning of "tests." The third-level, accurate
explanation is that this is a legal proverb meaning that the very fact of
there being an exception proves the existence of a rule in cases not
excepted. If there is a law saying you can't buy liquor on Sundays this
implies that you can buy liquor on the other days.

There are many other examples of the three-level process in the quotation
realm, such as "lies, damned lies, and statistics" or "go west, young
man." Can anyone think of any good examples in the etymology realm? Has
anyone ever written about this phenomenon?

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press,
Yale Law School forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com
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