I recently had cause to heap praise on Kurt Andersen for his book Fantasyland, a hugely entertaining exploration of how the US ended up with Donald Trump. But now I must dispatch a small brickbat in his direction for this: “As modern science begat modern technology, the proof was irrefutably in the pudding.” Sorry, but that’s a horrible mangling of a perfectly framed saying.
But, alas, Andersen is not alone. I have recently come across the following horrors:
• “ ‘Proof is in the pudding’ for Dynamic Planner triple partnership”;
• “The new video shows some proof of the pudding, which helps us realise the potential of the specs revealed last month”;
• “The proof is in the pudding. He’s moving his head more, he’s throwing more punches, and he’s lighter”.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating makes perfect sense. Adaptations render it quite meaningless. Still, perhaps it’s no worse than a recently heard revision: “The gap between them is no thicker than a fag packet.” Funny, I thought cigarette papers were still very much in favour.
Meanwhile, back on the planet of speaking the bleeding obvious, I have recently noted Kate Moss being referred to as a supermodel, Emma Thompson as an actress, Bentley as a manufacturer of luxury cars and Shakespeare as a playwright. I do think certain newspapers should give their readers credit for being sufficiently well versed not to need such qualifiers.
And finally to return to nouns being used as verbs. Commenting on the continuing chaos on Everest, which resembles nothing so much as Kent police’s stacking operation on the M20, one mountaineer blamed the problem on “summitting”. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…
•Jonathan Bouquet is an Observer columnist
