[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.