The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language

The Proof of the Pudding

As we’ve seen, both probable and prove come from a single Latin root: probare. But while probable has, through overuse, come to mean only likely, prove has prospered and its meaning has grown stronger than it ever used to be. However, you can still see its humble origins in a few phrases that don’t seem to make sense any more.

Why would an exception prove the rule? And why do you have a proofreader? What happens on a proving ground that is so very definitive? And what kind of rigorous philosopher would require proof of a pudding?

The answer to all of these can be found in that old Latin root: probare. Despite what was said in the last section, probare didn’t exactly mean prove in our modern English sense, but it meant something very close. What the Romans did to their theories was to test them. Sometimes a theory would be tried and tested and found to work; other times a theory would be tried and tested and found wanting.

That’s the same thing that happens to a book when it’s sent to the proofreader. What the proofreader gets is a proof copy, which he pores over trying to fnid misspellings and unnecessary apostrophe’s.

That’s also why an exception really does prove a rule. The exception is what puts a rule to the test. That test may destroy it, or the rule may be tested and survive, but either way the theory has been proved.

Similarly, when a new weapon is taken to the proving ground, it’s not just to make sure that it exists. The proving ground is a place where a weapon can be tested to make sure that it’s as deadly as had been hoped.

All of which should explain why the test of a good dessert and the proof of a pudding is in the eating. It’s the old sense of prove.

Mind you, you probably wouldn’t have wanted to prove old puddings. A pudding was, originally, the entrails of an animal stuffed with its own meat and grease, boiled and stuck in a cupboard for later. One of the earliest recorded uses of the word is in a medieval recipe from 1450 for Porpoise Pudding:

The proof of porpoise pudding would definitely be in the eating. A pudding was effectively just a very strange (and possibly poisonous) kind of sausage.

Now, before the next link in the chain, can you take a guess as to why glamorous people put sausage poison in their faces?