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#1 2017-02-04 23:03:30

CatherineR
Eggcornista
Registered: 2006-08-09
Posts: 61

"pass the mustard" for "pass muster" ?

From a Facebook post critical of President Trump: “Your executive orders have to pass the mustard and be legal. ” I can’t figure out the logic of it, though, so maybe it’s a malapropism and not a true eggcorn.

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#2 2017-02-05 16:29:26

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2851

Re: "pass the mustard" for "pass muster" ?

Zwicky suggest “the sharpness and spiciness” of mustard might play a role. Seems to me that, if there is any semantic transfer, it might be in simplicity of the act of passing the mustard. If you can’t pass mustard, it’s hard to imagine what else you could accomplish.


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#3 2017-02-06 15:29:00

JChance
Member
Registered: 2015-07-08
Posts: 12

Re: "pass the mustard" for "pass muster" ?

Likely. However, I’d call “pass the mustard” an idiom blend, between the punny/idiomatic “cut the mustard” and the more straightforward “pass muster.”

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