The end of cash is nigh....

[tarzanontarmazepam]

May 21, 2011 9:27:37 GMT Weyland said:

May 20, 2011 21:42:46 GMT @riotgrrl said:

You could be wrong sweets. I (for one) don't keep a single piece of paper these days. I file everything electronically.

Me too. And you do have adequate back-ups, naturally.

Is your place of work anywhere near paperless? I thought not.

I rest my casework.

On a related matter, I was a draughtsman in the 60s, and metrication was all the rage then. Nearly half a century later Britain is still largely in the dark ages in that department.

I envy you weyland. I always admire people who can do things that I can't. Hated technical drawing at school because I couldn't do it. Same with woodwork...other boys were building dining suites and I was still struggling to craft a chessboard. I soon realised that laid down rules of apprenticeships were not for me. I recall one teacher looking at me forlornly and saying 'Whatever will become of you...'

They didn't inspire great confidence.

[Weyland]

May 21, 2011 9:34:04 GMT @tarzanontarmazepam said:

May 21, 2011 9:27:37 GMT Weyland said:

Me too. And you do have adequate back-ups, naturally.

Is your place of work anywhere near paperless? I thought not.

I rest my casework.

On a related matter, I was a draughtsman in the 60s, and metrication was all the rage then. Nearly half a century later Britain is still largely in the dark ages in that department.

I envy you weyland. I always admire people who can do things that I can't. Hated technical drawing at school because I couldn't do it. Same with woodwork...other boys were building dining suites and I was still struggling to craft a chessboard. I soon realised that laid down rules of apprenticeships were not for me. I recall one teacher looking at me forlornly and saying 'Whatever will become of you...'

They didn't inspire great confidence.

Just earning a crust, Chris. A lad's gotta do, etc. In those days you could practically take your pick of engineering apprenticeships and stuff like that on Tyneside. No great effort involved to get a job. Company sent you to college half the year and paid you for it. Investment, they called it. All flushed away and/or sold off by Thatcher, Blair, and the rest of the scum. And replaced with . . . fast-food shacks, pound shops, and money-for-nothing froth. [/rant]

In any case, count your blessings — paid holidays in Cornwall and all that . . . and I wish Riot was my sister.

[Patrick]

My good lady's office went paperless in the late nineties. The old "Postroom" staff were converted into "Letter Scanners" and everything that came into the office went into 'the system'. The only time you saw paper again after that was when letters went back out to the customers or 'suppliers' (in this case; surgeons or hospitals).

[Weyland]

May 21, 2011 14:32:03 GMT Patrick said:

My good lady's office went paperless in the late nineties. The old "Postroom" staff were converted into "Letter Scanners" and everything that came into the office went into 'the system'. The only time you saw paper again after that was when letters went back out to the customers or 'suppliers' (in this case; surgeons or hospitals).

The exception that proves the rule? Were the scanned documents ever seen again? I'd be prepared to bet that the managers' offices are still stacked high with paper.

IBM was supposed to be largely paperless by the late 80s, but it was a running joke that managers were prone to printing out at least one copy of every email. It was the same by the time I left, umpteen years later.

[everso]

I'd never trust a computer. Give me paper any day (although all my photos are on disk)

[aubrey]

One of my jobs at the place where I worked was to shred all the documents from 7 years ago. There were loads. It was quite good fun, though. I remember finding once a ledger covering the period when I saw The Fall for the first time (that was a lot more than 7 years previously, though). It got me all nostalgic and that.


Chris - I share that woodwork thing. I once spent a year planing a face side and face edge on a piece of wood. I'd get it out of the box at the start, put it into a vice, and then spent the rest of the lesson wandering about trying to avoid the teacher. A whole bloody year.

[jean]

May 21, 2011 15:43:34 GMT Weyland said:

The exception that proves the rule?

Most emphatically not.

[Weyland]

May 22, 2011 10:29:02 GMT jean said:

May 21, 2011 15:43:34 GMT Weyland said:

The exception that proves the rule?

Most emphatically not.

I'm well aware of the misconception, Jean. The Dutch verb proeven means to test. As you know, Ye Olde Englishe is closely related to Dutch.

See also begs the question.

[jean]

[quote author=biker board=neattidyplease thread=3163 post=57823 time=1306060967I'm well aware of the misconception, Jean. The Dutch verb proeven means to test. [/quote]
But that's a miconception of a misconception you've just articulated there, Weyland. The meaning of the Dutch and its relation to English is a complete red herring.

It has often been suggested in reference works that prove here is really being used in the sense of “test” (as it does in terms like “proving ground” or “the proof of the pudding is in the eating...

The problem with that attempted explanation is that those putting it forward have picked on the wrong word to challenge. It’s not a false sense of proof that causes the problem, but exception. We think of it as meaning some case that doesn’t follow the rule, but the original sense was of someone or something that is granted permission not to follow a rule that otherwise applies.

[Weyland]

May 22, 2011 11:19:02 GMT jean said:

[quote author=biker board=neattidyplease thread=3163 post=57823 time=1306060967I'm well aware of the misconception, Jean. The Dutch verb proeven means to test.

But that's a miconception of a misconception you've just articulated there, Weyland. The meaning of the Dutch and its relation to English is a complete red herring.

It has often been suggested in reference works that prove here is really being used in the sense of “test” (as it does in terms like “proving ground” or “the proof of the pudding is in the eating...

The problem with that attempted explanation is that those putting it forward have picked on the wrong word to challenge. It’s not a false sense of proof that causes the problem, but exception. We think of it as meaning some case that doesn’t follow the rule, but the original sense was of someone or something that is granted permission not to follow a rule that otherwise applies.[/quote]
And he goes on to quote some Latin including the verb probare, which can mean prove or test. Another red herring? More like circular logic. In short, I'm not convinced.

[jean]

May 22, 2011 11:35:41 GMT Weyland said:

And he goes on to quote some Latin including the verb probare, which can mean prove or test.

It's not just 'some Latin', it is the precise legal formulation which is translated as the English phrase we know and love today.

And in that context, probat doesn't mean tests:

The true origin of the phrase lies in a medieval Latin legal principle: exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis, which may be translated as “the exception confirms the rule in the cases not excepted”.

What probare might mean in other contexts is irrelevant to what it means in this one.

Look at the examples Quinion gives. The point is that the existence of an exception indicates that there is a rule to which it is an exception, and even if the rule has not been articulated or you did not previously know about it, you know now.

[Weyland]

May 22, 2011 12:23:28 GMT jean said:

May 22, 2011 11:35:41 GMT Weyland said:

And he goes on to quote some Latin including the verb probare, which can mean prove or test.

It's not just 'some Latin', it is the precise legal formulation which is translated as the English phrase we know and love today.

And in that context, probat doesn't mean tests:

The true origin of the phrase lies in a medieval Latin legal principle: exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis, which may be translated as “the exception confirms the rule in the cases not excepted”.

What probare might mean in other contexts is irrelevant to what it means in this one.

Look at the examples Quinion gives. The point is that the existence of an exception indicates that there is a rule to which it is an exception, and even if the rule has not been articulated or you did not previously know about it, you know now.

Except that in this case there is no rule. That a paperless office is a chimera. Only the evidence of long experience.

And quoting the language lawyers use is a bad idea in any case. They make it up to suit their wallets. In short, I don't like his style.

[jean]

May 22, 2011 18:58:45 GMT Weyland said:

Except that in this case there is no rule.

'Rule' - that's the other word in this phrase that's got two meanings.

The first is what's normally understood when the phrase is used today - the generality of what occurs (cf 'as a rule'), and the second is an instruction that has to be obeyed - it's that one that's required for an understanding of the original phrase.

And quoting the language lawyers use is a bad idea in any case.

Not when it is what you were talking about in the first place. What else could you quote?

The only safe thing is not to use the English version of the phrase at all.

[Weyland]

May 22, 2011 19:28:17 GMT jean said:

The only safe thing is not to use the English version of the phrase at all.

Good advice. I think I'll make it a rule.

~

Meanwhile . . .

BEG verb

6. To take for granted without warrant; esp. in to beg the question: to take for granted the matter in dispute, to assume without proof.

1581 W. Clarke in Confer. iv. (1584) Ffiij, I say this is still to begge the question. 1687 Settle Refl. Dryden 13 Here hee's at his old way of Begging the meaning. 1680 Burnet Rochester (1692) 82 This was to assert or beg the thing in Question. 1788 Reid Aristotle's Log. v. §3. 118 Begging the question is when the thing to be proved is assumed in the premises. 1852 Rogers Ecl. Faith 251 Many say it is begging the point in dispute. 1870 Bowen Logic ix. 294 The vulgar equivalent for petitio principii is begging the question.

[OED 3.11]

[Weyland]

Since this is Patrick's thread, it seems as good a place as any to report that the citrus clock is an hour slow.

[jean]

Ah yes, our old friend petitio principii.

Here's Michael Quinion again:

Because of possible confusion over what you actually mean, and inevitable condemnation from people who have taken the trouble to find out what it once did mean, it’s better avoided altogether.

[Weyland]

May 23, 2011 8:50:33 GMT jean said:

Ah yes, our old friend petitio principii.

Here's Michael Quinion again:

Because of possible confusion over what you actually mean, and inevitable condemnation from people who have taken the trouble to find out what it once did mean, it’s better avoided altogether.

And again . . .

QUINION

abbrev. of quinternion.

1897 R. Garnett in Bibliographica III. 37 Their [sc. Sweynheym and Pannartz's] spacious premises are choked with unbound sheets in quinions. 1927 E. K. Rand in W. M. Lindsay Palaeographia Latina v. 53 A quinion may consist of a quaternion ruled four leaves at a time plus an extra leaf. 1959 P. H. Blair in Moore Bede 11/2 It contains thirteen gatherings of which ii, iv, v and viii–xii inclusive are regular quinions, that is, each of five bifolia making ten leaves after folding.

~

QUINTERNION noun

A set or ‘gathering’ of five sheets of paper.
1652 Urquhart Jewel Wks. (1834) 189 The quinternion consisting of five sheets, and the quire of five and twenty. 1883 Axon Introd. Caxton's Chesse p. xi, The book+consists of eight quaternions+and one quinternion or section of five sheets folded together.

[OED 3.11]