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B

Some of us have heard these phases, maybe? The first being positive the latter negative. The first deals with ______________ And the second is likely ________________. I like to expand on the diversity of these not so common phrases ,I realize this forum is filled with genius and savants and I want your input. Sure I could google it. But wheres the fun in that?

X

A) tobacco of high enough quality to be made into snuff. B) tobacco of lesser quality that could be used for other purposes. It comes from the snuff heighday period when snuff was the preferred form of tobacco and got the higher grades. I don’t think the same holds true in the modern tobacco industry.

B

Ok, i may have cheated and done a bit of searching (I dont use google as they track you and record your ip address (try startpage instead)) but this is a pretty decent explaination. Up to snuff’ originated in the early 19th century. In 1811, the English playwright John Poole wrote Hamlet Travestie, a parody of Shakespeare, in the style of Doctor Johnson and George Steevens, which included the expression. “He knows well enough The game we’re after: Zooks, he’s up to snuff.” & “He is up to snuff, that is, he is the knowing one.” up to snuff A slightly later citation of the phrase, in Grose’s Dictionary, 1823, lists it as ‘up to snuff and a pinch above it’, and defines the term as ‘flash’. This clearly shows the derivation to be from ‘snuff’, the powdered tobacco that had become fashionable to inhale in the late 17th century. The phrase derives from the stimulating effect of taking snuff. The association of the phrase with sharpness of mind was enhanced by the fashionability and high cost of snuff and by the elaborate decorative boxes that it was kept in. The later meaning of ‘up to standard’, in the same sense as ‘up to scratch’ (see also: ‘start from scratch’) began to be used around the turn of the 20th century.

S

thanx for researching…

B

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-upt1.htm