William Sommerwerck (in response to Khen Lim's posts) wrote:
[snip]
>> Maitani's suggestion for the OM-5 did not pass the mustard
>> with the board.
>
> This is OT and perhaps a little too ad-hominem to be justified, but as a
> professional writer, I have to say something about the way people mangle and
> conflate metaphoric expressions.
>
> It should be "did not cut the mustard" or "did not pass muster".
>
> Why do people use such expressions when they haven't given one microsecond's
> thought to what they're saying?
Er, William? Without commenting on the remainder of your post, much of
which I agree with, I'm assuming -- from some of Khen's personal
background which he revealed -- that English is not his first language
(although I must say his command of it is generally excellent, and far
better than my command of, say, French). I *understood* what he meant,
even though he somewhat mangled what is admittedly a rather obscure
English idiomatic expression.
Idiomatics are always the most difficult parts of the language,
regardless of the language and, yes, regardless of whether the speaker
has that language as his or her first one. We'd all do well to
continually remind ourselves of the transnational nature of this List
before we wail on someone for an inaccurate or imprecise use of slang or
idioms.
Garth
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