To have completely misunderstood the meaning of some sayings?

No ..its if you have a friend and they need something from you, they are going to act as a really good friend to you.

No. It really isn't.

No ..its if you have a friend and they need something from you, they are going to act as a really good friend to you.

No ..its if you have a friend and they need something from you, they are going to act as a really good friend to you.

Catch-22 I think comes from the novel by Joseph Heller - as in I think he coined the phrase rather than used an existing one.

I found the novel pretty impossible to understand (and I’m quite good at reading as I’m a lawyer …who also had to produce my full university transcripts to get my training contract!)

I think its a cockney thing that bomsitit, is a word for mess, rather than a comparison with a bomb has hit it.

So my mum and dad, and wider family would say 'thats a bomsitit', meaning thats a mess

No ..its if you have a friend and they need something from you, they are going to act as a really good friend to you.

What’s very unhelpful is when the same metaphor has two opposite meanings. DH sometimes says “it’s all downhill from here” meaning for example that he has had his last tricky work meeting of the week and it’s easy going until the weekend. My first thought when he says that is always that things will go downhill in the sense of going disastrously wrong. Then I have to remember what he actually means.

No, the “in need” refers to you. A friend who is still your friend when you are in need is a good friend. It’s the opposite of a fair weather friend.

No, you’re mistaken. @TheIncredibleBookEatingManchot is right. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/friend-in-need-is-a-friend-indeed

The proverb could, like anything, be used sarcastically but the sarcastic use is not the original meaning.

I wonder if you're confusing this with a similar phrase.
"Prove" meaning "to test" usually arises when we discuss "the exception that proves the rule". A logically nonsensical saying in the way that we understand "proof", but makes sense if you read it as "the exception that tests the rule".

(So "no absences allowed whatsoever" might be the rule, and "what if you are in prison for a crime you didn't commit/having chemo /in labour" might be situations that end up being exceptions to this rule... the rule would be tested and possibly amended by these exceptions.)

"Proof of the pudding being in the eating" has pretty much the same meaning whether you mean "prove" to test or to show how good it is.

😂my understanding is that it refers to the fact that if you were buying a horse you would look at its teeth to age it and not buy it if it was really old, but if someone was just giving you the horse then you wouldn't because it's a free horse.

Tall, Dark and Handsome. I always pictured that to mean a white man and that the "dark" was in reference to features such as black/brown hair or brown eyes. A friend told me that the dark was in reference to skin colour and that it basically meant a person of colour.

Before anyone comments that it shows my bias, I am a person of colour!

Someone I worked with (French) thought the phrase ‘can’t be arsed’ was ‘can’t be asked’ and had been using it in meetings! Legitimately as in ‘I can’t be asked to do that, as my workload does not allow’. We didn’t find out until she relayed a meeting to us and corrected her. This was for a big corporate - can imagine their faces in the meetings - would definitely have sounded like ‘can’t be arsed’ 🤣

Not quite - it’s nothing to do with "proving it". The word "proof" in the saying means "test". It means the only way to really know how good or bad something is, is by actually experiencing it. It’s a bit like "you can’t judge a book by its cover". You can only check or find out how good the pudding is by actually eating it (not just looking at it).

Heavy plant crossing. I was flummoxed by that one for years. Always thought of triffids when I was a kid. Knew it couldn't be that but it was years into adulthood before I knew for sure what it meant. (probably when Google was invented so I could look it up without embarrassing myself by asking an acutal human).

I'm confused now about this... I think I understood it to be @Twattergy 's way. If the house is deceptively large it is larger than it seemed, ie it seems smaller from outside. So still a deception. I think its usually a positive thing if something is deceptively large and a negative if deceptively small. It seems then phrase is meaningless if people understand it differently, I'll always be overthinking this now.

My whole life people have tried to explain to me the meaning of the expression 'that begs the question' and no matter how many times they do I simply cannot process its meaning.

But if I am the friend in need, how can I also be the friend indeed, if the friend indeed is my friend who is being a good friend?

Surely a friend in need, has a friend indeed, if indeed, they have a friend?

Now I thought it was 'I'll lead you all in the dance-a-dee.'

I thought WTF is a dance-a-dee? 😆

I converted to Law. The big City firms all ask for transcripts.

Edited to add that it’s only requested for the first few years. For example for a training contract or newly qualified roles. It soon defers to just your overall degree grade.

Isnt it more like, you cant properly assess something until you use it for it's intended purpose?
In this case the pudding is intended as a source of gustatory pleasure and so the ultimate test of it's merit, the proof of how good it is, will be when it is consumed.