Annoying cliches

[firefly]

Which cliches annoy you?

[babthrower]

Some are irritating, but there is only one that seriously annoys me: 'This is the exception that proves the rule.' In science and logic, the exception disproves the rule. I wonder if the phrase originated in some grammatical context, perhaps in some notion that every grammatical rule must have one or more exceptions. But that's wrong, too.

[firefly]

Just because 'the exception that proves the rule' is a paradox, it doesn't mean its grammatically incorrect. Something like 'the exception is proves the rule' would be so, but 'exception that prove the rule' doesn't. Also, I think that the rules of grammar are not as a cast in stone as you make out, any more the rules of spelling-they keep changing.

[Ewood27]

It's still best to avoid all cliches like the plague.

[andy hughes]

A set of cliches that do bug me is the American 'business-speak' ones about "Running it up the flag pole ...." "Putting it in a bowl and see what the cat licks up....." and the ultimate - "Thinking outside the box ...." who conceives this nonsense? Can someone tell them it has the opposite of the desired effect - they don't sound erudite and smart, they sound facile and ...er...cliched!

[bernardo]

"The exception which proves the rule" was used in the old-fashioned meaning of the word "prove" i.e to test; to verify the boundaries of; not in the modern legal/logical sense.

[surfsup]

Well done bernardo! As the old saying goes, 'Not many people know that'. In fact, I couldn't have put it better myself. Except perhaps, somewhat pedantically (grammar-wise), to say "the exception that proves the rule"