Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
Some intentional puns (often culinary), but apparently some naive productions, perhaps
“passing mustard” suggests “able to handle a strong mustard”, or perhaps “good enough quality to count as mustard”. Here are some examples from the wild (3 of many):
”...one is having a resume that passes mustard and the other is getting to the interview.”
www.nfbcal.org/s_e/list/0029.html
“If your guide passes mustard we’ll place your guide in the Lunabean Download Store and in our eSellerate Download Store. We’ll provide the bandwidth,...”
www.lunabean.com/publishing.php/
“The tester might as well pickup of the telephone receiver and blow in to it to see if the line passes mustard…. The problem was this noise test is that …”
www.vonl.com/support/faq/loadcoils.cfm
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This eggcorn may also be related to the expression “to cut the mustard,” which means approximately the same thing as “passing muster.”
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Pass mustard is in the DB, with a comment documenting the verb “mustard up”.
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