At 08:21 AM 12/14/00 -0800, Bruce Jones wrote:
>Exception that proves the rule:
>
>Recently I've been having a chat with Tom Deaver, not related to
>this discussion, [...]
A hobby horse of mine: an exception does not -- indeed, cannot --
demonstrate the truth of a rule; an exception tests or probes a rule.
"Prove" and "probe" are doublets in English; we still retain the "test"
sense of "prove" in the expression "proving ground" (i. e., a place where
tests of one kind or another are done).
Apologies for the excursus. I don't oil my shakuhachi (it's a very modest
instrument, and I'm lazy), and it hasn't cracked thus far, but I think, as
one or another writer said of his instruments, I've just been lucky. I've
taken mine from southern Ontario (sometimes rather humid, especially for a
month or two in late summer) to Calgary (very dry) and still had no
problems, though I confess I got nervous when in the latter place and kept
my flute in a small bathroom with several wet rags lying about.
Does altitude (I suppose difference in atmospheric pressure) have any
effect on bamboo? Calgary is at 1079 m, but I don't know if that's
significantly higher (or lower, for that matter) than where the bamboo
would have been harvested.
Windsor Viney
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