Interesting, we have the same expression in french and it is also commonly misunderstood and has also been traced back to latin (“Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis”) which was a law thing supposed to mean that the mention of an exception implies the existence of a rule. E.g “no parking on Sundays” implies you can park there the other days.
This is what I heard about the English variant, too. I wonder if “prove = test” is grounded in research, or just folk etymology like “the mall = a place to visit them all” or “news = North East West South” (both are wrong, but the news is quite old and may have had influence on new becoming news)
Interesting, we have the same expression in french and it is also commonly misunderstood and has also been traced back to latin (“Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis”) which was a law thing supposed to mean that the mention of an exception implies the existence of a rule. E.g “no parking on Sundays” implies you can park there the other days.
This is what I heard about the English variant, too. I wonder if “prove = test” is grounded in research, or just folk etymology like “the mall = a place to visit them all” or “news = North East West South” (both are wrong, but the news is quite old and may have had influence on new becoming news)