Yesterday I heard an English baker on a cooking show say that "the proof is in the pudding." I've heard the expression before but I can't imagine how pudding would prove anything. How did the idiom start, what did it mean originally, and how is it correctly used today?
asked May 22, 2014 at 17:15
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1Here's one bit of stuff: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/…– F.E.Commented May 22, 2014 at 17:23
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2The proof [that the pudding tastes good] is in the pudding (eat it and taste!). The original phrase was "The proof of the pudding is in the eating", but has just been changed over the years.– DocCommented May 22, 2014 at 18:09
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14If you make it with alcohol, there could be quite a lot.– OldcatCommented May 22, 2014 at 18:23
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This video may explain it perfectly.– user53089Commented May 22, 2014 at 23:11
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3 Answers
William Camden, Remains Concerning Britain: Their Language, Names, Surnames, Allusions, Anagramms, &c. &c. &c. (1674) has this formulation
The proof of a pudding is in the eating.
which means simply that a pudding is as good as it tastes—or conversely, that if it doesn't taste good, no amount of justification offered on behalf of its other merits or initial disadvantages really matters.
Oswald Dykes, English Proverbs, with Moral Reflexions (1713) offers this moral reflection on the proverb:
In fine, the best Way of judging of Things beyond Mistake, is by the Issue, or the Event of them ; for as we say commonly, The Proof of the Pudding is in the eating, so we ought to speak as we find only upon the last Tryal and Experience, either of its Goodness, or its Distaste.
Charles H. Spurgeon, The Salt-Cellars (1889) frames the test—and the proverb—as a negative:
The proof of the pudding is not in chewing the bag.
after which he draws a religious analogy:
No ; nor does the proof of soundness in the faith lie in using the phrases of orthodoxy, and harping on mere words.
So if true faith is the pudding, "the phrases of orthodoxy" are the bag.
answered May 22, 2014 at 17:37
The proof of the pudding is in the eating has mutated over the years. As you mention, some of the current versions of the phrase lack apparent meaning.
answered May 22, 2014 at 17:23
To prove in this context means to test (cf. Danish 'prøve', German 'probieren', 'to try', 'to sample', 'to try out'). Although it is almost obsolete in normal usage today, this less common application of the verb 'prove' is still current in certain familiar collocations, e.g. 'to prove [= test] the suitability' of someone or something, 'to prove [= test] ore', and in the term 'proving ground'.
The same sense of the word is the one being invoked in it's the exception that proves the rule. (If you substitute test, the proverb actually makes sense: it's the exception that tests the rule.)
answered May 22, 2014 at 19:10
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4You might want to double-check your understanding of exceptions testing rules. There's good evidence (see final entry) that the phrase uses "proof" in the usual sense of implication, but is only sensibly applicable to a somewhat narrow range of situations. Commented May 23, 2014 at 0:03
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2@blahdiblah - Did you understand your comment? I certainly didn't. It also turns out that even Cecil Adams (whose discussion you linked to) had to eat his own words under the cover of a flurry of incomprehensible verbiage, and arrived at something like my interpretation. Commented May 23, 2014 at 7:46
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5The exception and proof is about 'rules' like this: if I say
you cannot park here on sundays, this is the exception that proofs the (unmentioned) rule "you are allewed to park here" (on any other day).– NanneCommented May 23, 2014 at 9:06 -