Mea Culpa: the proof of the pudding is that readers don’t like it

Questions of usage and style in last week’s Independent, answered by John Rentoul

Not that Yorkshire folk need any further proof that they live in God’s Own County... (Getty/iStock)

A couple of readers objected to the phrase “the proof is in the pudding” in an article analysing the causes of the decline in Labour Party membership, which include disillusion with Keir Starmer’s support for Israel in Gaza.

As Linda Beeley said, this is a common abbreviation of the phrase, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” She protested that the short version is “meaningless”. I don’t think that is right because everyone knows what it originally meant, and the proof is, in a sense, “in” the pudding.

But if some readers take against a phrase, we don’t get to argue our case, except in this column, by which time it is too late. My argument has always been that we should try to avoid words or phrases that some people think are wrong, even if we think that they may be wrong to think so.