Organising an event

La prova tecnica generale is the full technical run-through, and the first noun in it is worth a minute because English owns the same word and has quietly moved it. Both prova and « proof » go back to Latin probare, to put a thing to the test, from probus, sound. Italian kept the testing: la prova is a rehearsal, a trial, a school test, the fitting of a jacket in a shop, and mettere alla prova is to put to the test. English let « prove » slide from testing a thing to demonstrating it, so that a proof now settles a question instead of asking one. The older sense survives in fossils, and each one explains itself the moment the shift is known: a proving ground tests vehicles, a proofreader tests a text against the copy, armour is called bulletproof because it was fired at, and the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Read la prova as a test and every use of it on this page falls into line; read it as a proof and the schedule stops making sense.