guilding_the_lily old hick "I love you." 000209 ... icy isn't it "gilding" the lily? (that's my 'editor' mode coming out) it's amazing where all the phrases used come from. and how they're quite often misquoted. why do we say "sound as a dollar" or "fit as a fiddle" to mean we're not sick or feeling fine? really, in another language, would getting a load off one's chest really be carthatic or possibly a trip to the hospital? and just how, exactly, would the proof be in the pudding?! i never understood the saying, until i learned it was misquoted. makes more sense now. 031028 ... User24 explain about this proven pudding! I'd love to know how the misquotation cam about, and what it was misquoted from. 031028 ... icy " According to Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, the phrase dates back to at least 1615 when Miguel de Cervantes published Don Quixote. In this comic novel, the phrase is stated as, "The proof of the pudding is the eating." ...it seems likely that the phrase dates back to the 1600s, though the identity of its author is disputed. " :) 031029 ... icy sorry, i forgot the other part. it was simply shortened to its current nonsensical saying. i guess the eating part was just too long to say, and people knew the whole thing, so they claimed the proof was right in the pudding. sort of like how some last names came about. people would say, 'stan, john's son.' and it was shortened to stan johnson. some names are funny the way they came about. 031029 what's it to you? who go blather from