Re: Why is everyone saying "The proof is in the pudding"?

the Omrud <usenet.omrud@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:

The OED says

Originally from PROOF n. 7a 'test', but now sometimes understood
as PROOF n. 1a 'evidence'.

Interestingly, their second quotation is

1682 N. O. tr. N. Boileau-Despréaux _Lutrin_ III. Argt. 23 The
proof of th' Pudding's seen i' th' eating.

That "seen" makes it look like it was intended to be "test".
[revised to "evidence"]
Does
anybody have the original French to check against?

Here's the text:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/8lutr10.txt

I've had a quick scan through chapter three, but I couldn't see it, and
I don't have time to read the rest. Perhaps somebody can spot it.

I suspected we were not going to find a French version of that proverb
there, and I think I was right. I found the English translation that the
OED quoted,

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_Lutrin/Canto_III

and "The proof of th' Pudding's seen i' th' eating" appears at the end
of the first verse.

But the French version of Canto 3 (Chant Troisieme), checked at two
websites, begins directly with

Mais la nuit aussitôt de ses ailes affreuses
Couvre des Bourguignons les campagnes vineuses,

Which is quite closely translated in the English second verse:

But Night in hast with her Dark Canopy,
Shrowding the viny Plains of Burgundy,

I'm afraid the English translator freely invented the opening dozen
lines -- it's marked "Argument" so it might be a summary of One and Two.
I can find stuff in the French version about an owl and a prelate and so
on, but if there's something closer, someone else will have to find it.

Anyway, I think the old translation in English (the Wikisource page) is
your best hope to determine the meaning.

--
Best -- Donna Richoux



.

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