doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Proof, prove, proven, proved...?

As an English teacher, the ability to wield the English language with precision and clarity is something I aspire to (and often fail...).
It is with some confusion then that I wonder whether a gun "submitted for proof" or "in or out of proof" has been "proofed", "proved", or "proven" at a Proof house...
My Maquarie dictionary says that to "prove" is to, among other things, to "put to the test; to try out" (a verb); it lists "proof" as a noun meaning, among other things: "a test; a trial", and "the condition of having been tested and approved".
I'll be consulting my shorter OED shortly for more, and perhaps try and find guidance in a Burchfield edition of Fowler...
What is the correct word usage?
Anyone able to help?
RG

A guess only: you send your gun to be proved, not proofed.

I also can't stand poor grammar. If you notice, journalists used to be held to a certain standard ... not anymore. You'll see them use improper tenses all the time. It's as if the word 'proven' no longer exists.

Just like the morons who drink 'Sweet Tea'. Aside from being bilge water, it is 'Sweetened Tea'.

Anyway, I believe that the rules are a little different when it comes to what is really a set of technical terms. While you would never say 'those facts have been proofed' I think it is probably correct to say 'that gun has been proofed'. It's probably also correct to say 'proved'. but I am sure it's not correct to say 'proven'.

As near example is the hanged/hung bit - onc your clothes have been put up to dry, they are hung but once your Uncle Ned is swinging from a rope he has been hanged.

Just had a look at Fowler's Modern English Usage: it's not very helpful.
OED states "prove" can be to "subject to a testing process"; proof can be "6. The action or an act of testing something"; or, better still: "9a The testing of cannon or small firearms by firing a heavy charge or by hydraulic pressure" and "b a place for testing firearms or explosives".

So clearly we have proof houses, which prove the fitness of small and other arms in a process called proof (is the act of that proofing or proving?), but I can still not say whether an arm so proved/proofed/proven is, properly speaking, proofed, proved or proven!

I'm inclined to believe, though, that properly, a firearm is more likely to be proofed than proven or proved, and that a proof master is likely to be proofing a firearm before he is proving it given the specific technical sense of the word.
You may be right, GregSY, that if a condemned man is "hanged by the neck until dead", but his clothes are hung out to dry, that most things can be proved or proven, but guns are proofed...
RG

Sent my gun to the Proof House to get it proofed, once it had been tested (proofed) it was in proof.Now I have the Proof certificate to say it has been proofed and is in proof.If you don't believe me the facts can be proven beyond proof.Which proves I am not telling a lie.

Nothing like sweet tea......

DLH

"I can prove I shot 100 wild turkeys." or "I had a shot of 100 proof Wild Turkey" Which is grammatically correct?

What a tangled web we weave. One of the beauties of English is having more than one way to convey meaning. I work with many non-native speakers. For many and in their native languages, speaking an way other than absolutely correctly is embarrassing. I explain to them to go ahead and use English as the first priority is to convey the picture from their heads to the heads of others. We can worry about the best or most correct use of language later. While I don't condone sloppy language use, I do appreciate that English accomodates.

I'm with Salopian. I believe the proof houses have always said they "Proofed" a gun, not that they "Proved" it.

Greg, although the fashion these days seems to be to attach "any" to a variety of words to make one word, I believe it's still "any more".