But these are 'the' exceptions rather than the rule

CopperKettle

Aug 4, 2015 01:13

A very interesting answer, I wonder why nobody else mentioned that possibility:

1

A: "But these are the exceptions rather than the rule" - could we omit the first definite article here?

No, dropping the article makes little sense here. And this based on grammar, not on the collocation the exception rather than the rule. And note it is a collocation and not an idiom. The author uses the exceptions because he has a definite subset of mental illnesses in mind. The construction of ...

Anonymous

I've been going through the unanswered questions list (note: attributive plural) looking for answers good enough to upvote. If at least one answer on each question reaches 1 point, then it's removed from the unanswered questions list.

Anonymous

So unfortunately, I've used all my votes and can't downvote the answer you linked ;-)

CopperKettle

@snailboat A noble deed!

@snailboat Oh, so you disagree with my secret admirer, User1?

Anonymous

I don't think the article needs to be inserted.

Anonymous

(I don't think it's "dropped" if it's not present―it's not a matter of ellipsis)

CopperKettle

Aug 4, 2015 01:16

@snailboat I see.. Anyway, the more opinions the better.

Anonymous

Woah. I like some of Tbridges42's answer, but . . .

Anonymous

> But these are the exceptions rather than the rule.

Anonymous

If I pronounce it like that, I sound ridiculous.

Anonymous

I don't see any reason to stress the or than . . . ?

Anonymous

> But these are exceptions rather than the rule.

Anonymous

Aug 4, 2015 01:18

This sounds silly, too.

Damkerng T.

I think I wouldn't stress than, with or without that the.

Anonymous

I don't agree with Nate Eldredge's answer at all . . .

Anonymous

It's an interesting guess, but the association would never have occurred to me.

Anonymous

And I think I'm capable of deciding whether the sounds good or not without reference to that idiom.

jimsug

Do you think that the sentence means These are the [only] exceptions rather than the rule?

Anonymous

Aug 4, 2015 01:21

books.google.com/ngrams/…

jimsug

And There are [some] exceptions rather than the rule, just doesn't make sense?

Anonymous

The red line should include the blue line.

Anonymous

Let's try out some subtraction . . .

jimsug

yeah

Anonymous

I had to put it in parentheses to get it to understand it as a (mathematical) expression. Did I get the syntax right here? books.google.com/ngrams/…

Anonymous

Aug 4, 2015 01:23

This would seem to suggest the shows up roughly half the time.

Anonymous

Unfortunately, Google doesn't publicly expose an interface to 6-grams

Anonymous

So I can't put rule at the end of either term

Anonymous

corpus.byu.edu/glowbe/?c=glowbe&q=40789971

Anonymous

I found 15/24 results in GloWbE with the

Anonymous

The numbers are too small to really go by, unfortunately

Anonymous

Aug 4, 2015 01:26

> Many cite the example of a relative of hers and one or two others who succeeded without going to university. However they fail to understand that they are exceptions rather than the rule. For every Alan Sugar who left school at 15, there are thousands, maybe millions more that flounder and fail in ways they wouldn't have had someone sat them in a lecture hall at 18.

Anonymous

> I'm not trying to hammer anything with a screwdriver, I'm just trying to figure out why you think your so-called "edge cases" are exceptions rather than the rule, and how legally enforcing and protecting metadata will miraculously endow today's derivative works with originality worthy of Intellectual Monopoly protection.

Anonymous

There's definitely plenty of usage without the

Anonymous

So the question is, how do the semantics differ, assuming they do? (Back to jimsug's question)

Anonymous

And is the difference relevant to the case in the OP's question?

Anonymous

(Also, why do I sometimes feel like semantics is singular, and other times plural? That seems weird to me.)

Anonymous

Aug 4, 2015 01:28

That's all I've got for now. I can't come up with a valid answer to the question off the top of my head because I'm not sure about the question of semantics.

CopperKettle

Sorry, I need to be busy elsewhere! Bye, Snails, Dam, Jimsug!

Anonymous

Later, Copper!

Damkerng T.

They sure imply two different things to me, but I guess the implications I think would be different from what native speakers think.

See you around @CopperKettle!

If they wrote But these are exceptions rather than the rule, I would think that the writer hadn't categorized mental disorders before he wrote that sentence.

But if they wrote But these are the exceptions rather than the rule (which they did), I would think that the writer had already categorized the mental disorders, likely into two groups, in their mind before he wrote that sentence.

It seems like I read the sentence a little differently from CopperKettle.

(I just read his opinion in the question.)

My reading seems to be in line with TRomano's.

Anonymous

I haven't read TRomano's answer yet.

Damkerng T.

Here, it is not that we are presenting examples from a set, but an acknowledgment of the very existence of the set. Every rule has its exceptions. Like "these are the pros, and those are the cons". — TRomano Jul 25 at 10:39

Catija seemed to read the sentence the same way CopperKettle did, though.

Yes. It's completely fine. In fact... "the exceptions" makes it sound (to me) like "the only exceptions"... which clearly isn't the case. Omitting "the" makes it sound more open, implying that those two are two of many rather than a finite list of only two items. I posted this before I read the deleted answer, so I came to this conclusion independent of it. — Catija Jul 31 at 6:31

Anonymous

Aug 4, 2015 01:39

Naively, I would expect "they are the X rather than the Y" implies that the set is divided into X and Y

Damkerng T.

That would be similar to TRomano's and my reading.

Anonymous

Whereas "they are X rather than the Y" implies that they're examples of X

Anonymous

But when I think about it, I feel like it's likely to be non-exhaustive in either case.

Damkerng T.

The important thing about this the, imho, is to make the sentence talking about two groups, not two things.

Anonymous

I think in "(the) exception(s) rather than the rule", it's always going to be about groups.

Anonymous

Aug 4, 2015 01:43

If you say "He's the exception rather than the rule", you're not necessarily saying he's the only exception.

jimsug

@snailboat byu has a google books interface

Damkerng T.

Interesting. This time (He's the exception rather than the rule), I read it that he's the only exception.

Anonymous

@jimsug Yes, are you saying you think it would be useful here?

jimsug

@snailboat But you can't search both American and British English at the same time. googlebooks.byu.edu/x.asp

Damkerng T.

I should turn my model further.

jimsug

Aug 4, 2015 01:45

@snailboat It's a bit more flexible, plus I guess you can inspect results more easily.

Damkerng T.

@jimsug It's very strange that BYU asked me to create an account to it to use Google Books, but when I did that, it told me that I'd already had one. ('Cause I already have one for COCA.)

So, basically, I can't use the BYU interface, because I've used it 15 times already.

Anonymous

Nope, the BYU interface doesn't support 6-grams either, and the results links just jump to Google Books, which is unfortunate . . .

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Just use the login you made for COCA

Damkerng T.

@snailboat If I do that, when I switch to Google Books, BYU will think I haven't logged in yet!

It's very weird!

Oh, it allows me today, but as an anonymous user, I think.

Anonymous

Yeah, I don't think this phrase carries the meaning of exhaustive listing of exceptions, regardless of whether the is inserted

Anonymous

Aug 4, 2015 01:50

I've been looking through results, and I think if the exhaustive listing meaning is taken from the phrase, it's because it makes sense to interpret it that way contextually

Damkerng T.

nods

Too bad that Cocopop didn't discuss whether it's possible to write the sentence without the the.

Anonymous

My conclusion: the doesn't really matter in terms of meaning

Anonymous

Although I think there must be cases where that isn't true.

Anonymous

In the examples I looked at, it didn't seem to me that it made a difference.

Anonymous

Maybe the exhaustive listing interpretation is available if the is present in the right context, but is never available without the?

Anonymous

Aug 4, 2015 02:04

But in most contexts that interpretation isn't selected, so the ends up not affecting the meaning most of the time?

Anonymous

It certainly does affect the sound of the sentence.

Anonymous

Maybe after some more research I could write an answer, but for now I'm still going to hold off.

Anonymous

I tend to write answers too hastily

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I think that's the case, and it's essentially the same as part of ultrasawblade's answer.

> You do not use an article before plural nouns in English unless you mean a specific set of X or multiple groups of X previously mentioned or observed.

Anonymous

But that's not what I said.

Damkerng T.

Aug 4, 2015 02:09

Probably not exactly the same, but I think the underlying concepts of his and your ideas are the same.

Anonymous

I don't think so . . .

Damkerng T.

Oh!?

Anonymous

I think that in this case the makes no difference most of the time. (Certainly in all the examples I looked at.)

Anonymous

I think that in the right context, it could make a difference.

Damkerng T.

He seems to also think so.

Anonymous

Aug 4, 2015 02:10

But the sentence you quoted contradicts what I just wrote.

Damkerng T.

I think that he also thinks so, too.

Hmm...

Anonymous

Well, let me read his whole answer.

Anonymous

Hmm, no, I don't think it's quite the same as what I'm thinking, but it seems like a decent enough answer anyway.

Damkerng T.

Maybe I expand on his thinking a little too much. :-)

Anonymous

Well, I don't agree with his answer exactly, but . . .

Anonymous

Aug 4, 2015 02:13

TRomano's answer is good, although it's posted as a comment so it can't be accepted

Damkerng T.

Especially the part "previously mentioned or observed", which I think all native speakers know that it's not limited to only that.

@snailboat nods -- I agree with him too.

Anonymous

Well, part of the universe of discourse shared by speaker and listener.

Language Overflow

Participants