"Too old to cut the mustard." No answer, just a question. (Am getting to the point in life where I need to know).

-- paul (primrose@centex.net), January 31, 2002

Answers

Google says a 1902 book by O. Henry.

-- mitch hearn (moopups@citlink.net), January 31, 2002.

How about: Canadian linguist Mark Israel cites O. Henry's Cabbages and Kings of 1894, in which he used mustard to mean the main attraction: "I'm not headlined in the bills, but I'm the mustard in the salad dressing, just the same." Israel also says the use of mustard as a positive superlative dates from 1659 in the phrase "keen as mustard", and the use of cut to denote rank (as in "a cut above") dates from the 18th century.

-- BC (desertdweller44@yahoo.com), January 31, 2002.

Can't answer the "too old" part of your statement, but "to cut the mustard" is a slurring of the statement "to cut the muster" which was a Civil War term. If a would-be soldier didn't want to go to war and could afford to pay someone to take his place he was the "cut (from) the muster". A muster being a list of names of soldiers. So, the term "to cut the muster" means you can't (or don't want to)do something usually unpleasant.

I can't swear this is correct, but it's what I was taught.

Wishing you enough.

-- Trevilians (aka Dianne in Mass) (Trevilians@mediaone.net), January 31, 2002.