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To say someone "can't cut the mustard" means they aren't up to a particular challenge. But why mustard? It's not like it's a difficult condiment to slice... According to Mavens' Word of the Day, author O. Henry deserves credit for coining it. "So I looked around and found a proposition that exactly cut the mustard," he wrote in the early 20th century. Alas, nobody seems to know why Mr. Henry chose mustard over ketchup (or tangy mayo for that matter). It could be that he wasn't talking about mustard at all. According to World Wide Words, some believe the expression references mustard, others suspect it's really another way of saying "muster." Such an
explanation does make sense, until you consider that O. Henry could have been talking about the mustard seed, which, we're told, is quite difficult to cut. Regardless of the phrase's true origin, we're happy it's still being used. Today's idiotic idioms, like "economies of scale" and "growing the brand," just don't cut the mayo.
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