The proof of the pudding is in the eating

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The proof of the pudding is in the eating is a proverb that means "You will not fully comprehend it until you try it" or "results are what count."

It is frequently rendered in the shorter form The proof is in the pudding, which dates back to the 1920s and came into common use in the United States in the 1950s.[1] The American Heritage Dictionary trims it even further, to proof in pudding.[2]

[edit] Origins

The current phrasing is generally credited to Miguel de Cervantes in Don Quixote (1615)[3], via the popular 1701 translation by Peter Anthony Motteux. Motteux' translation of the book is famously loose, and budin, the Spanish word for pudding, does not appear in the original Spanish text.[4]

Rogers' Dictionary of Cliche and the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations date it to the 14th century as "Jt is ywrite that euery thing Hymself sheweth in the tastyng", and William Camden stated it in 1605 in Remaines of a Greater Worke, Concerning Britaine as "All the proofe of a pudding, is in the eating".[5]

A 1682 translation of Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux Le Lutrin (written between 1672 and 1674) renders it "The proof of th' pudding's seen i' the eating."[6]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Proof of the pudding (Michael Quinion, World Wide Words)
  2. ^ Where does the phrase "the proof is in the pudding" come from? (Ask Yahoo, Tue 03 Sep 2002)
  3. ^ The proof of the pudding is [in] the eating. by Miguel de Cervantes (Quoteworld)
  4. ^ Proof of the pudding (The Phrase Finder)
  5. ^ Proof of the pudding (Answers.com)
  6. ^ Re: Correct Cliche (Joel Wolfson, Imagelib mailing list, Mon 10 Jun 1996)


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