Philosophy of science

The fifth entry is il salvataggio ad hoc, and the two Latin words at the end of it carry opposite verdicts in the two languages. In English « ad hoc » is faintly disparaging: an ad hoc committee is one nobody planned, an ad hoc arrangement is a stopgap, and an ad hoc explanation is an excuse. In everyday Italian the same tag is praise. Una soluzione ad hoc is a solution cut exactly to the case, uno strumento ad hoc is the right tool rather than an improvised one, and la persona ad hoc is precisely the person for the job. The Latin ad hoc means only for this, and each language kept a different half of that: made for this one thing, which can be a virtue, or good for nothing else, which is a fault. In the term of this list the fault is meant, and it is meant in the English way. A theory that survives only because an assumption was added after the awkward finding has been rescued ad hoc — fitted to that one result, and to nothing beyond it.