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08-29-2017 08:58 PM - edited 08-29-2017 08:59 PM
@QueenDanceALot wrote:I've always heard "the proof is in the pudding".
Guess I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks.
LOL That's the way I always heard it too.
edited to add: I don't think I've ever actually said the expression, just heard it.
08-29-2017 08:59 PM
"For all intensive purposes" is a common boo-boo.
08-29-2017 09:05 PM
08-29-2017 09:06 PM
@Moonchilde wrote:"For all intensive purposes" is a common boo-boo.
I almost spit my iced tea all over when I saw this. LOL LOL LOL
08-29-2017 09:16 PM
@Citrine1 wrote:
@Moonchilde wrote:"For all intensive purposes" is a common boo-boo.
I almost spit my iced tea all over when I saw this. LOL LOL LOL
I used to laugh when I saw that, but in a way I guess it's not really funny because a lot of people use it! 😜 I can't imagine. There's so much people absorb from reading, and seeing something on a page or screen in front of them, that you miss if you don't read.
08-29-2017 09:23 PM - edited 08-29-2017 09:27 PM
@jackthebear wrote:The proof of the pudding' is just shorthand for 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating'. That longer version makes sense at least, whereas the shortened version really doesn't mean anything - nor does the often-quoted incorrect variation 'the proof is in the pudding'. The continued use of that meaningless version is no doubt bolstered by the fact that the correct version isn't at all easy to understand.
The meaning become clear when you know that 'proof' here is a verb meaning 'test'. The more common meaning of 'proof' in our day and age is the noun meaning 'the evidence that demonstrates a truth' - as in a mathematical or legal proof. The verb form meaning 'to test' is less often used these days, although it does survive in several commonly used phrases: 'the exception that proves the rule', 'proof-read', 'proving-ground', etc. When bakers 'prove' yeast they are letting it stand in warm water for a time, to determine that it is active. Clearly, the distinction between these two forms of the word was originally quite slight and the proof in a 'showing to be true' sense is merely the successful outcome of a test of whether a proposition is correct or not.
'The proof of the pudding is in the eating' is a very old proverb. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations dates it back to the early 14th century, albeit without offering any supporting evidence for that assertion. The phrase is widely attributed to Cervantes in The History of Don Quixote. This appears to be by virtue of an early 18th century translation by Peter Motteux, which has been criticised by later scholars as 'a loose paraphrase' and 'Franco-Cockney'. Crucially the Spanish word for pudding - 'budín', doesn't appear in the original Spanish text. It is doubtful that 'the proof of the pudding' was a figurative phrase that was known to Cervantes.
The earliest printed example of the proverb that I can find is in William Camden's Remaines of a Greater Worke Concerning Britaine, 1605:
Nope. It's used as a noun in both versions. The rest is just unbelievable, as in, I can't believe I read this entire thread.
08-29-2017 09:25 PM
Hi @MsLomo! A pleasure to post with you again!
I've been known to say something like, "All that stuff about 'pennies saved.'"
Here's a scary thing...I have no idea what I was talking about when I said,
...I think I should have put a comma after the word "proverb" (in its first usage in the second paragraph) and after "...pudding."
!!!???? Unless I've totally lost it, there is no paragraph wherein this makes any sense at all!???!
Your wish is my command (I had to fight like the dickens...heh!...to wrest the box from the squirrel!)
08-29-2017 09:26 PM
@Citrine1 wrote:
@Moonchilde wrote:"For all intensive purposes" is a common boo-boo.
I almost spit my iced tea all over when I saw this. LOL LOL LOL
I also thought this was hilarious.
08-29-2017 09:30 PM
Good luck with that....lol
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