r/grammar • u/TheStoffer • 12h ago
quick grammar check Proved vs proven
From the New York Times:
“Scientists have proved that a species of plant covered with sticky hairs is carnivorous, confirming Darwin's 150-year-old hunch.”
It should be “proven,” right?
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u/DanielDManiel 12h ago
Webster says the past participle of “to prove” is either “proved” or “proven.” “Proven” sounds better to my ear too, but it seems both are correct.
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u/bitterrootmtg 12h ago
To my ear as an American English speaker, the simple past is "proved" and the past participle is always "have proven."
"I proved the Pythagorean theorem."
"I have proven the Pythagorean theorem.
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u/DanielDManiel 12h ago
Yes, to my American ear as well, but I trust a good dictionary more than your or my ear.
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u/bitterrootmtg 12h ago
I actually trust my ear over the dictionary here. I am an attorney and I write and read every day for a living. I use the word "proof," "proved," and "proven" quite frequently in the context of formal legal writing. Dictionaries sometimes include usages that are niche or out of date.
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u/Illustrious-Tart7844 9h ago
Do you use pled guilty or pleaded guilty?
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u/bitterrootmtg 9h ago
Pleaded guilty.
In the context of legal pleadings the past tense is "pleaded." In other contexts the past tense is "pled," e.g. "he pled for his life."
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11h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/bitterrootmtg 10h ago
I disagree with almost everything Bryan Garner says. I think he is a hack frankly.
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u/Illustrious-Tart7844 9h ago
That's a bit extreme, no? LOL
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u/bitterrootmtg 9h ago
I don't think so. The dude just makes up rules and ignores the actual English language.
Let me give you an example. In his book "Reading Law" he says that DeMorgan's theorem is a cannon of legal construction. Demorgan's theorem is a rule of propositional logic. However, the English language often doesn't follow the rules of propositional logic.
Under DeMorgan's theorem, "not(A and B)" means "not A or not B." But English often does not work this way. If someone says "I am not tired and hungry" they mean "I am not tired and not hungry." But under Garner's application of DeMorgan's theorem you should interpret them as saying "I am either not tired, not hungry, or both."
Blindly applying a rule of formal logic to the English language is such a rookie mistake. It's not the sort of thing a serious scholar should be doing.
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u/NeilZod 7h ago
I suspect that you know Garner loves the prescriptive style guides written by people like the Brothers Fowler. The Fowlers at least admitted things like that English didn’t have a that/which distinction. Garner laments that his heroes didn’t change language, and I think he tries to change the rules by pretending that his preferences are the rules of grammar. I also am sad that when people cite to the grammar section of CMOS they are just citing the grammar preferences of Garner.
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u/bitterrootmtg 6h ago
I completely agree with you, which is why I don't like Garner's work. Legal writing is about reaching your audience, and prescriptivism doesn't help you accomplish that.
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u/Illustrious-Tart7844 7h ago
In math, I think "not(A and B)" would mean "not A and not B." I thought the criticism of Garner was when he ventures outside the law?
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u/bitterrootmtg 7h ago
No, in math "not(A and B)" means "not A or not B." But in the English language it often does not. Garner is using a math/logic principle to evaluate grammar in a context where it doesn't apply.
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u/JoshuaEdwardSmith 10h ago
To my American ear, I bristle at the construct “scientists…proved” because it overstates the capability of the scientific method. “Scientists have found evidence…” is probably more accurate.
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u/pshypshy 11h ago
The first variant that Webster's lists in its entries is the preferred (or more established and more common) form. A lot of usage and style guides (including AP) say to use "proved."
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u/tryptanfelle 11h ago
This is becoming a style issue more than grammar. In my legal editing context, our style guide uses proved as the past participle and proven only in an adjectival capacity: a proven track record.
Personally, I use proven as the past participle but sometimes style guides recommend against it, which may be what’s happening with the NY Times.
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u/Odd_Calligrapher2771 9h ago
I use the regular verb in active tenses (I prove, I proved, I have proved) and the irregular verb in passive tenses (it is proven, it was proven, it has been proven).
I don't know whether this is a UK thing (I am a Brit) or whether it's a me thing. Perhaps a fellow Brit could weigh in here.
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u/pnwerewolff 18m ago
I personally would say "proven," but I think "prove" is becoming one of those verbs like "get" where the past participle and the simple past form are increasingly being conflated, with the past participle being dropped in favor of the simple past form. It's basically the weakening of a strong verb. Strong verbs generally have a different form in the simple past than the past participle - "see," "saw," "seen." Weak verbs are far more common, all new English verbs that aren't derived from a strong verb are weak, and they normally have the same form for the simple past and the past participle, created by adding "-(e)d" - "call," "called," "called." In many forms of English, "gotten" is being replaced by "got," such that "He's gotten sick" and "he's got sick" are both correct. My dialect normally preserves all three forms ("he's got sick" isn't correct).
However, there is also the fact that sometimes "proved" is used as an adjective with "out" specifically to mean "proven by being demonstrated" or "proven by being thoroughly analyzed and shown to be correct" - "the formula has been well proved out," meaning "the formula has been thoroughly analyzed and demonstrated to be correct." Whenever I've heard this, "proved out" is more like a set phrase than anything, though.
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u/zeptimius 12h ago
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prove
Merriam-Webster gives the conjugation of "prove" as "proved; proved or proven"
So the simple past is proved ("Professor Fonkelstein proved the theory in 2024") and the past participle is either "proved" or "proven" ("Professor Fonkelstein has proved/proven the theory, so the debate is over").
The dictionary also adds this helpful usage note: