Catania, Italia
The author examines the thesis expressed in the title of the volume by Matteo Motolese «L’eccezione fa la regola». Sette storie di errori che raccontano l’italiano (Milano, Garzanti 2022), and especially the notions of «exception» and «error». In the light of the notion of «error», considered as «a usage condemned, generated by a contrasting rule [R-2]», versus a usage approved and generated by a canonical rule [R-1], the author analyses the examples of errors detected by Motolese in the linguistic history of the 7th–8th centuries (Appendix Probi), of the 13th century (Canzoniere Laurenziano), of 1501 (Petrarca, Le cose volgari), 1603 (Vocabolario della Crusca), 1840 (Alessandro Manzoni, Promessi sposi, ed. Quarantana), 1939 (the linguistic policy of Fascism) and 2022 (grammar/spell checkers).