The person who tests a rule at its edge may understand it more usefully than the person repeating its center.

Learning a rule and learning what it is for are two different kinds of understanding. Whoever asks about the awkward case, the exception, the situation the wording never anticipated, is finding out where the rule stops and why it was written at all. Repeating the obvious middle demonstrates compliance and teaches nothing about limits. Edges are where a rule’s actual purpose becomes visible.

When you take on a policy, ask what happens in the strange case rather than confirming the standard one. And if you write rules, treat the person probing the edge as useful rather than as a nuisance.