Comment by jay_gridbach
5 days ago
Thank you for your advice! It helped me to understand how native speakers take this sentense. I have just corrected to "no one has proven it mathematically to this day".
5 days ago
Thank you for your advice! It helped me to understand how native speakers take this sentense. I have just corrected to "no one has proven it mathematically to this day".
The "to this day" is in my opinion unnecessary - you could phrase it as "no one has proved it mathematically".
Alternatively, "it has yet to be proved mathematically".
Thank you. Just removed "to this day".
Btw despite the helpful pedanticism[1] of HN, I think your English is impeccable and idiomatically natural for someone who has probably not spent much time in immersive spoken English environments.
1. pedantry
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If you want to imply some likelihood for it to be proven, you might write “yet to be proven”. Language subtleties…
"to this day" creates an emphasis, like that it is surprising/amazing that such an old problem is not yet solved.
In this setting, the preferred word is "proved".
"Proven" is not incorrect, although sometimes proscribed. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/proven#Usage_notes
"Proved" means demonstrated with a formal mathematical argument.
"Proven" refers to something confirmed over time, often used more informally.
"Proofed" is an editorial term—preparing text for publication.
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I would like to note, just for fun, that "proofed" also exists and means something else entirely.
Not a native speaker, here. Do you mean "proved" is preferred in a mathematical context?
Not who you were replying to, but yes, it's a special case. For anything not having to do with a formal math-like proof, you want "has proven" instead of "has proved." It's super weird.
We only have a few of these in English, where one of the tenses of the verb changes depending on the subject matter, but they do exist. The only other one I can think of off the top of my head is hang: past and participle "hanged"/"have hanged" (to execute or be executed via hanging from the neck) versus "hung"/"have hung" (any other meaning).
Hope that helps!
Edit: fixed my example to better match the original text.
5 replies →
The curious situation is that verbs similar to prove have past participles which are just the same as the past tense. Even approve!
You don't say "your application has been approven".
Or "the problem has been solven".
Or "the quantity halved again, like it had halven before".
Or "that function has misbehaven again".
Or "I have moven the funds to the correct account".
Yet, "proven" is accepted.
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