"This pudding has no theme"

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:26 AM -0400 7/18/07, Laurence Horn wrote:
>At 4:10 PM +0100 7/18/07, Michael Quinion wrote:
>>The dating of the evidence suggests that "the proof of the pudding is in
>>the eating" is much the older form (The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs has
>>its first explicit example from 1623, though it quotes a text of c1300 to
>>show the idea was around even earlier), from which "The proof is in the
>>pudding" has been derived.
>>...
>As noted in my last message, the OED itself also has that 1623 cite
>for the eating version, and as far as I can tell doesn't have "the
>proof is in the pudding" at all.  AHD4 has "the proof of the
>pudding", Mike's posited elliptical version.
>
>LH
>
Oops.  Sorry, I should have rechecked the dates before posting.  What
the OED has at _pudding_ 6b is nothing earlier than this 1682 cite:

1682 N. O. Boileau's Lutrin III. Argt. 23 The proof of th' Pudding's
seen i' th' eating.

and there's no reference to anything earlier.

LH

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