Forum Moderators: open
The correct saying is "The proof of the pudding is in the eating."
All you misquoters out there stop it or I'll revoke your pudding privileges.
lawman
Would the cat get what it needs? If it tried?
Sometimes.
And Mivox just thinks she's the cat's meow with all these discussions about pudding, pussyfooting around the real issues, bringing in talk of sixpence, four and twenty blackbirds, which by the way, is the earliest reference I can find to the now common 420 expression... the whole thread is going to pot.
;)
Then, you let it out with the bag opening pointed into a cage (the cat will generally enter the cage at high velocity), wherein you can blow dry the cat out of claws reach. Once it is dry, you just let it sit there for a while until it seems to have forgetten its thoughts of vengeance... (or at least until the rightful owner shows up to pay you for torturing their cat and take the furious animal home).
And I am clever, though I don't know if I would call the noises the cat made a "meow", it's all the same to me. Even if I was once declared irrelevant in a court of law... It's better than being declared incompetent.
And isn't it supposed to be a "pig in a poke"? What's up with cats in a poke? And why are sacks and bags called pokes anyway?
But I can't think of a single reason to stuff a pig in a bag in a first place, airy or not. They haven't got enough hair to need a proper shampoo, and they enjoy being sprayed off with a hose which is really as much washing as they need...
.... you guys are just freaky scary sometimes.. *lol*
-really? I honestly never have heard that last part before. I guess, perhaps, that the owner of the cat thinks the cat got killed because it did something foolish (out of curiosity) and now is nowhere to be found, and then after a while the cat returns, not killed after all. I've heard cats do such things which is why the "nine lives" also goes around, afaik.
/claus
What about letting the cat out of the bag? In fact, why put a cat in a bag to start with? And if someone is going to stuff a cat in a bag, why would anyone be so stupid as to let the cat out?
when someone puts a cat in a bag, or a poke to be more topical, they're just sneakin' by you that they've been putting pigs in that poke, and sell it to you as such. so....
sadly, it's only when you get home that you let the cat out of the bag. its then that you realize you were one, born every minute.
putting the cat in a box on the other hand, is just toying with half its life. or its half life... hm.
the earliest reference I can find to the now common 420 expression
420 is the section of the Indian Penal Code that covers fraud. "Char-Sow-Bees" - which is Hindi for "Four hundred and twenty" - is a common expression in India & Pakistan and is used to refer to crooks, conmen and frauds.
Other Commonwealth countries have similar law. The equivalent in Nigerian Criminal Law is their Section 419 which is what the Nigerian Scam letters are generally referred to.
God and Bennett! I may have made a sensible contribution to the thread.
"provare" from Italian (hence from Latin before) means both to prove and to test.
We retain this double meaning not only with "proof of the pudding" but also with the expression "proving ground" meaning test ground.
So, simply, the expression originally meant that having a cake that looked nice was all well and good but it was only when you taste it, eat it, that you "test" its real worth.
So you can argue about why this meaning has been retained so long when, for a century or so, "prove" only means one thing to most people - but once you understand the origin of the verb, the saying does at least make sense.
God and Bennett!
I have always thought that expression was "Gordon Bennett!".
*blink*
Although now I find myself wondering who the hell Gordon Bennett was.. and more importantly why have I been saying this for some 30-odd years without ever previously wondering who he was?!
older southern British expletive, Gordon Bennett.
[quinion.com...]
No need to *iss on the fire with that guy around...
....another example that WebmasterWorld really IS the source of all knowledge....
God and Bennett! I may have made a sensible contribution to the thread.
Well, now you've gone and ruined everything. ;)
Well, now you've gone and ruined everything. ;)
It shows that I too am capable of misquoting adages, old or otherwise :-)
Nono... I was referring to the "sensible" part of your statement. ;)
Note that there is no "proof" that I did indeed make a sensible contribution ;-)
