![]() ![]() And what’s more, neither proof nor pudding originally meant what we commonly take them to today. It’s because the proof wasn’t originally in the pudding. There’s good reason the saying doesn’t make much sense, as often and freely as we might use it. The proof is in the pudding.”īy proof, here, we usually mean “evidence” or “verification,” but what is this pudding? A bowl of tapioca-or chocolate, if you prefer? And why are we seeking confirmation in it? “Dieting is hard, but if you stick to it, the proof is in the pudding,” we might say. Let’s have a look at some other such sayings whose devilish-or divine, I mean-details we haven’t quite heeded over time. ![]() It advised that it’s in fact God who is in the singular detail. ![]() But this saying, not evidenced until 1963, actually comes from a German proverb. Like the devil’s in the details, used to emphasize the importance of the nitty-gritty, often hidden or overlooked, elements of a project. Nor is it terribly rare for us to warp an expression over time-sometimes even capsizing its original meaning altogether. Such etymological obscurity isn’t uncommon when it comes to idiomatic language, whose root creativity is lost to time even as the phrases prove their value in our everyday speech and writing. at that, leaving this expression vulnerable to a host of other colorful origin stories. The saying, however, wasn’t first printed until 1883 and in the U.S. What does red paint have to do with rambunctious fun? The source of the saying is much disputed, but it’s popularly refrained that in 1837, a roguish Marquis of Waterford led a riotous spree through the English town of Melton Mowbray, literally painting several of its buildings red (it was lit, apparently). Take paint the town red, an expression for boisterous partying. But have you ever stopped to consider them-I mean, really looked at them up close? They’re very strange. Sayings, proverbs, adages, idioms-they have a taken-for-granted quality about them, their wisdom and utility packaged in a tidy bundle of words ready for us to drop into our sundry communication needs. ![]()
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