BS: Cut the mustard?

Subject: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: Gurney
Date: 20 Nov 03 - 05:01 AM

I understand the implications, but where does the phrase come from?
Is it too low and wrecks an aging spine or something? Maybe the stems are tough and it makes your arms ache. There must be an agrarian person out there in Catland who has actually tried to cut mustard.

I drove by some once. Looks like yellow fluff, from the car.

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 20 Nov 03 - 09:00 AM

"can't cut the mustard" - the condiment - not the plant. Mustard is semi-liquid - if you can't cut the mustard you are innefectual.

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: Louie Roy
Date: 20 Nov 03 - 12:01 PM

Like the old story when the man told his wife he was to old to cut the mustard and she told him he could lick the jar

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: Sorcha
Date: 20 Nov 03 - 12:04 PM

I have a t shirt that says, I can still cut the mustard, I just need help opening the jar....

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: Amos
Date: 20 Nov 03 - 12:06 PM

I have always associated this with military musters, for some reason. It seems to me it pre-dates Gray Poupon, but I could be wrong. Anyone got any hard data?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 20 Nov 03 - 12:13 PM

Can't cut the Poupond then?

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: RichM
Date: 20 Nov 03 - 12:19 PM

I found this on a web search:

"The expression "too old to cut the mustard" dates back to when people made mustard at home by grinding mustard seed and adding just the right amount of vinegar ("cutting the mustard") to balance the taste. If too much vinegar was added, the whole concoction tasted terrible, so the balance was critical. Many families found that elderly members tended to add too much vinegar resulting in the saying." (pg 92)

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: Amos
Date: 20 Nov 03 - 12:21 PM

Also see:

Cut the mustard
Here is the article on "cut the mustard" from the faq (frequently asked questions list) of the UseNet newsgroup alt.usage.english:

This expression meaning "to achieve the required standard" is first recorded in an O. Henry story of 1902: "So I looked around and found a proposition [a woman] that exactly cut the mustard."

It may come from a cowboy expression, "the proper mustard", meaning "the genuine thing", and a resulting use of "mustard" to denote the best of anything. O. Henry in Cabbages and Kings (1894) called mustard "the main attraction": "I'm not headlined in the bills, but I'm the mustard in the salad dressing, just the same." Figurative use of "mustard" as a positive superlative dates from 1659 in the phrase "keen as mustard", and use of "cut" to denote rank (as in "a cut above") dates from the 18th century.

Other theories are that it is a corruption of the military phrase "to pass muster" ("muster", from Latin _monstrare_="to show", means "to assemble (troops), as for inspection"); that it refers to the practice of adding vinegar to ground-up mustard seed to "cut" the bitter taste; that it literally means "cut mustard" as an example of a difficult task, mustard being a relatively tough crop that grows close to the ground; and that it literally means "cut mustard" as an example of an easy task (via the negative expression "can't even cut the mustard"), mustard being easier to cut at the table than butter.

The more-or-less synonymous expression "cut it" (as in "'Sorry' doesn't cut it") seems to be more recent and may derive from "cut the mustard".



from http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/mustard.html

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Nov 03 - 12:34 PM

mustard is one of the oldest condiments in western Europeean culture...

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: Cool Beans
Date: 20 Nov 03 - 05:03 PM

And in the words of (I think) Bessie Smith:
I want a hot dog for my roll,
Want it hot, don't want it cold.
I sure would be disgusted
If your dog can't cut the mustard...

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: SINSULL
Date: 20 Nov 03 - 07:22 PM

Oh you mustard been a beautiful baby...





I'll go away now.

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: michaelr
Date: 20 Nov 03 - 07:26 PM

Sign seen at deli:

WE POUPON YOUR SANDWICH

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: Mickey191
Date: 20 Nov 03 - 07:57 PM

This is funnier then the joke thread!

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 21 Nov 03 - 04:17 PM

TOO OLD TO CUT THE MUSTARD
Rosemary Clooney and
Marlene Dietrich

When I was young I had lots of pep,
I could get around I didn't need no help.
But since I'm old and a-gettin' gray,
The people look at me and say....

CHORUS:
Too old, too old,
He's too old to cut the mustard anymore.
He's a-gettin' too old, he's done got too old,
He's too old to cut the mustard anymore.

I used to could jump just like a deer,
But now I need a new landing gear.
I used to could jump a picket fence,
But now I'm lucky if I jump an inch.
Because I'm...

(CHORUS)

When I was young I had an automobile,
I'd scoot myself right under that wheel.
I had to fight the gals off with a stick,
But now they say, "Oh, he makes me sick,
Because he's..."

(CHORUS)


Found Here


Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: Gurney
Date: 21 Nov 03 - 11:09 PM

Thank you, gentlefolk. I had considered cut in the 'dilute' sense and in the 'sever-the-condiment' sense and discounted both, because to cut in the dilute sense would take mustard from english to nearer french, and older tastes tend to get more insensitive, and in the sever sense was too daft for consideration. Wrong on both counts, it seems. Chris.

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 22 Nov 03 - 04:13 PM

WOW! thanks for the song - Too old to cut the mustard! This should be in the DB... :-)

Haven't heard it since I was a child. A good fast tune. Now who recorded it? I think it was one of those beautiful female harmony groups in the 1940's - 1950's. Andrew Sisters?

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Nov 03 - 08:36 PM

In "Gargantua and Pantagruel" someone famous is condemned to Hell, where he is a mustard-seller and "pisses in the mustard, like the mustard sellers do in Paris."

Wish I could remember who it was...wish my books weren't all in storage.

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: Mr Red
Date: 23 Nov 03 - 01:16 PM

Well as a fully paid-up marmustard detestator all I can say is it is not confined to Paris. I prefer Plaster of Paris on my Marmite thankyou.

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 23 Nov 03 - 03:08 PM

Foolestroupe: as it says in the post just above yours (the one with the lyrics) Rosemary Clooney and Marlene Dietrich, although I seem to remember hearing it with younger voices

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: Willie-O
Date: 24 Nov 03 - 02:10 PM

I was once at a well-known Ontario fiddling contest. The cornball emcee, after finding the oldest couple in the house, brought them up on stage and serenaded him with a chorus of "Too Old To Cut The Mustard" and her with "The Old Grey Mare". Talk about tasteless!

(Mind you, if my mom and stepfather had been there, they could have won both that category and "most recent newlyweds". Wonder what Mr Emcee would have made of THAT.)

Me, I LOVE good mustard (only the good stuff). Make it hot, and/or get creative with it. Here in mpale syrup country, Marion Paul makes a maple mustard that's to die for.

I heard there's a Mustard Museum in the U.S. midwest. When they moved into a bigger building, they transported the stock the normal way, then to move the very last jar, formed a human chain from the old building to the new and said "pass the mustard" on down the line.

Mustard people are odd but cool

Willie-O
mustard person


W-O

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: Peg
Date: 25 Nov 03 - 08:49 AM

a little bit of mustard is a wonderful thing. Too much is a nigthmare. Try getting the person behind the sandwich counter to just put a "little" musard on your sandwich...

The French word for mustard (moutard) is fun to say in a silly, Maurice-Chevalier accent.

Devilled eggs just don't taste right unless you add mustard.

The folks who make Grey Poupon also make a lovely Country Msutard with seeds...

A. E. Coppard wrote a wonderful short story called "The Field of Mustard." I was asked to read it for a creative writing class in grad school and was inspired to write a contemporary version/homage called "The Field of Patchouli."

short from providing a recipe or two, that is all I have to say on the subject although I have enjoyed this thread!

peg

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: artbrooks
Date: 25 Nov 03 - 09:03 AM

As usual, I find myself out of the mainstream in a Mudcat thread. Under most circumstances, I prefer to spread the mustard, although I have been known to squeeze it out of a tube...barbarous thought, that.

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: greg stephens
Date: 25 Nov 03 - 09:59 AM

I think it's something to do with dancing, but I'm not sure where I got this idea from.

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: JennyO
Date: 25 Nov 03 - 10:25 AM

I think that's "cutting a rug".

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: greg stephens
Date: 25 Nov 03 - 11:26 AM

Maybe aI am thinking of cutting the rug. And "cut" is a dance step. It's possible I am confused, I often am!

Subject: RE: BS: Cut the mustard?
From: greg stephens
Date: 25 Nov 03 - 11:43 AM

And then there's trimming the velvet