[CrzyLngPwd]

> the "a few bad apples are not representative of a group"

I have never heard that phrase, it has always been that the few spoils the whole.

I have heard people say "the proof is in the pudding", which means nothing at all, when the real phrase is "The proof of the pudding is in the tasting".

I'm from England and I speak English, so maybe it hasn't translated well to Americlish.

[AmpsterMan]

I think the larger "issue" is that the phrase colloquially means the exact opposite of the original observation, that a bad apple MEANS the bunch is spoiled. It's worse because this changing of the meaning is perpetuated by those same bad apples themselves.

"the proof is in the pudding" is a much more benign change. It's literally just a shortening, but no meaning is lost... if you want the proof, you'll find it in the pudding (implying you should try the pudding to verify your assumptions)

[capableweb]

"Literally" is another word where the meaning changed from being the literal opposite of what it was "meant" to originally mean, not sure one is "worse" than the other. It's just change, which will continue to happen.

[hnlmorg]

I would argue that the meaning has never changed. There is just an additional slang variation used by a subset of English speakers. Much like “wicked” was once slang for “good” and how Londers don’t literally ring people using the bones of dogs (“dog an bone” Cockney rhyming slang, in case the reference doesn’t translate).

[Aeolun]

> the original observation, that a bad apple MEANS the bunch is spoiled

Too few people have enough apple trees in their lives to preserve the meaning.

[ceejayoz]

"It's just a few bad apples" is a common response to police misconduct here in the States, with the attitude of "why are you making such a big deal out of this?"

The original saying, of course, is all about why you have to make a big deal out of this, for reasons that apply to both apples and cops.

[saghm]

> I have heard people say "the proof is in the pudding", which means nothing at all, when the real phrase is "The proof of the pudding is in the tasting".

To be fair, the "real" phrase you give here doesn't make much more sense to me. Even assuming the use of the term "pudding" across the pond to be more than just a fairly niche dessert like it is in America, what does it mean for pudding to have "proof"? Is is some sort of philosophical thing where you don't accept that the pudding exists unless you taste it (which I feel isn't super convincing, since if we're going to have a discussion, we kind of have to accept that each other exists without having similar first-hand "proof", so we might as well accept that pudding exists as well)? I know there's a concept of something called "proofing" in baking, but I'm pretty sure that happens long before people taste the final product.

In general, I don't find most cliches to be particularly profound. "It is what it is" is just a weird way to state an obvious tautology, but somehow it's supposed to convince me that I should just passively accept whatever bad thing is happening? "You can’t teach an old dog new tricks" isn't universally true, but it apparently also is supposed to be a convincing argument in favor of inaction. "You can’t have your cake and eat it too" is probably the most annoying to me, because the only way anyone ever wants to "have" cake is by eating it; no one actually struggles to decide between eating their cake or keeping it around as a decoration or whatever.

There's something about stating something vaguely or ambiguously that seems to make it resonate with people as profound, and I've never been able to understand it. In my experience, thought-terminating cliches are by far the most common kind.

[hnlmorg]

It’s “proof” as in to test. Like “proof reading”. The point being, the real test of how good something is, is to use it (for its intended purpose).

A vaguely similar sentiment to when people say “eating your own dog food” (or words to that effect) to mean testing something by using it themselves. Albeit the pudding proverb doesn’t necessitate the prover to be one’s self like “dog fooding” does.