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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
I had occasion to use the idiom “make the grade†this week. It is, I think, a railway metaphor, with “grade†being the word for the size of track slope (the “gradientâ€) and “making the grade†referring to rail engines being able to pull their loads up the inclines. An 1890 document uses the phrase in this way when it talks about local trains gaining enough momentum to “make the grade at the viaduct.â€
Most people, I should think, understand “make the grade†as an educational metaphor—getting a certain grade in order to pass. Which would make “grade†a stealth eggcorn.
But are these people misreading the idiom? “Make†first took on the sense of “achieve an [academic award, level],†as in the phrase “make an A,†in late nineteenth century U. S. slang (though “make†in the more general sense of reaching a game goal, on which the academic sense seems to rely, had already been part of English for at least two centuries). Take, for example, this OED citation of the academic use from 1870:
I will be glad to hear of your making a diploma this session and one at Phil[adelphia] next year.
It is possible that we have, not one “make the grade” idiom, but a pair of them, developing in parallel and exchanging semantic DNA.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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