Timeline for Is "proven" very old -fashioned?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 26, 2014 at 3:51 | comment | added | KCd | An article in preparation that ends with "we have thus proven that the zeros of the zeta function are on the line..." sounds potentially very important if you can just fill in that "..." | |
| Aug 24, 2014 at 7:25 | history | edited | tchrist♦ |
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| May 21, 2012 at 9:34 | vote | accept | Georges Elencwajg | ||
| May 21, 2012 at 9:33 | comment | added | Georges Elencwajg | @David: Ah, yes, I should have clicked instead of bothering you. Anyway, thanks for the information. | |
| May 21, 2012 at 8:36 | comment | added | user16269 | @GeorgesElencwajg You may certainly ask where I am from. Or you can click my name in the comment, and read for yourself that I have lived my entire life in New Zealand. | |
| May 20, 2012 at 21:33 | comment | added | Georges Elencwajg | @Cameron: thank you for your answer, young man. And I hope I will soon hear from you on math.stackexchange, since you already have an account there..... | |
| May 20, 2012 at 21:27 | comment | added | Georges Elencwajg | Dear @Christi: yes, I knew that. But now Alex is telling us that also proved/proven are of French origin! So much for my sensitive ears that want to hear real Germanic/Saxon/Norse English... | |
| May 20, 2012 at 21:16 | comment | added | Cameron | Since you asked whether a young American would find it odd, and I'm a young (college-aged) American (who takes plenty of math classes), I'll chime in and say that no, it doesn't sound odd at all to me. | |
| May 20, 2012 at 20:52 | comment | added | Christi | @GeorgesElencwajg Fair enough, but you do know that large chunks of English have their origins in medieval French? We foolishly got conquered by the Duke of Normandy, and the language never really recovered. :) | |
| May 20, 2012 at 20:50 | comment | added | Georges Elencwajg | @Christi: thanks for your comment. As I told David, I don't want to avoid archaic words: I am just curious. And I don't like demonstrate because it sounds less English and too Gallic ( to my French ears!) | |
| May 20, 2012 at 20:47 | answer | added | Alex B. | timeline score: 7 | |
| May 20, 2012 at 20:41 | comment | added | Alex B. | MW (AmE): "Surveys made some 50 or 60 years ago indicated that proved was about four times as frequent as proven. But our evidence from the last 30 or 35 years shows this no longer to be the case. As a past participle proven is now about as frequent as proved in all contexts." That's re: your "archaism". merriam-webster.com/dictionary/proven | |
| May 20, 2012 at 20:41 | comment | added | Georges Elencwajg | That's interesting David: may I be so bold as to ask you where you are from? (Incidentally, I'm not worried at all about sounding archaic: I rather like the idea! I am just interested in the way Americans speak or write English) | |
| May 20, 2012 at 20:38 | comment | added | user16269 | I haven't supplied an answer, because you specifically asked about American English; and I am not an expert in American English. However, it may well be a regionalism. For me, "proven" is the correct past participle - I would never say "we have proved". If you're worried about your last sentence sounding archaic, you should do something about the "thus", not about the "proven". | |
| May 20, 2012 at 20:35 | comment | added | Alex B. | oxforddictionaries.com/definition/prove?q=proven (scroll down a bit) | |
| May 20, 2012 at 20:26 | comment | added | choster | When caught making mischief, every American schoolchild will declare s/he is "innocent until proven guilty," so even if "proven" has fallen out of use in specific contexts, it is far from foreign to any generation. | |
| May 20, 2012 at 20:20 | answer | added | tchrist♦ | timeline score: 8 | |
| May 20, 2012 at 20:11 | comment | added | Christi | While I can't specifically comment on Americans, it certainly appears from context that you are using the word in a mathematical or scientific context, where it would not be out of place in modern usage. If you wanted to avoid the word, you could use "demonstrated" instead. | |
| May 20, 2012 at 19:38 | history | asked | Georges Elencwajg | CC BY-SA 3.0 |