OK, all you smart DUers, I give up. I need help.

[Redstone]

I've tried and tried, and I CANNOT find the origin of the phrase "cut a check." (When I was in the electronics business, I also heard the phrase "cut a purchase order.")

What is it about checks and purchase orders that results in them being "cut" instead of written?

I've seen a few harebrained theories that have to do with mimeograph masters and stencils, but that doesn't make any sense.

Anyone? this is a bit of linguistic / Americana trivia that has confounded me for years. Google is no help.

Free beer for the one who can explain this mystery to me.

Redstone

[FogerRox]

1. cut the bread-

cut wind

[salin]

2. refers to tearing out the perforated checks from check books

pre computer age - organizations used regular (low tech) checks to pay bills - the cutting, I believe, referred to the tearing out of the perferated checks. Or so Ispeculate.

[WCGreen]

6. That's it.......

From an accountant who has been around for awhile.....

[Redstone]

9. Are you sure? Every time I've heard the phrase, it was used

more in the context of the word "cut" replacing the word "write," rather than in the context of "tear a check out of a book so I can write it out."

And your explanation doesn't shine any light at all as to why the term should apply to purchase orders as well; they tend to be full-page documents, rather than pages of perforated ones.

Redstone

[WCGreen]

11. Duplicates.......

At least that is what I have always thought and I have been in the business for 30 years

[salin]

12. in earlier times these were the same things.

A company didn't write a check unless they were going to "tear" it off and use it. Generalized out refers to the writing (and thus tearing out of) a check.

[Floogeldy]

8. You just made that up.

Do tell what tearing perforations has to do with cutting.

[salin]

13. so literal.;.

tear = rip = cut. THe point is the act of issuing a check where (back in the day) the final act was tearing the check out of the check book as in the proof (or statement of promise) that indeed the check was more than just in the mail.

[Floogeldy]

15. Nice try.

Tearing is not cutting.

You do, however get a C- for effort.

[Redstone]

20. I think you may be right, though I didn't see the connection.

See Benny05's post below.

That lends a lot of credence to the "cut =tear along perforations" school of thought.

Thanks for your input.

Redstone

[Deja Q]

3. One possibility

http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/16/messages/329.html

[Redstone]

10. I did see that one in my prior research, but I don't

think it's actually the case.

I appreciate everyone's help, but the mystery still remains...

Redstone

[For PaisAn]

4. I just read this:

...make available as in 'cut a check' (write a cheque), 'cut me some slack' (give me a chance)

Still have no idea how "cut" came to mean "make available"

[Tom Kitten]

5. checks are legal documents

originally maybe they were cut in stone or engraved like stock certificates or money, maybe?:shrug:

the printing plates cut the paper ...
that's my 2 cents

[mcscajun]

7. Thread on another board sheds some light on this...

...there are two explanations -- both involve equipment used in business before the age of computers: the Paymaster Checkwriter, and the mimeograph.

http://forums.howwhatwhy.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=money&Number=157842&fpart=1

I tend to go with the checkwriter, myself. Many models actually perforated the amount into the checkpaper.

[Redstone]

16. OK, that's the Mimeograph theory again. But who ever

used a Mimeograph to write checks?

And the embossing machine is another one I've already heard. But embossing isn't cutting, is it? So throw that one out.

However, the one tidbit that was linked to said (rather briefly) that in the old days the numbers were actuall punched out of the paper to prevent alteration. That one might be a lead to the truth of the matter.

Redstone

[mzteris]

14. found this.......

Cut a Check

In 1875, bank owners went to great lengths to prevent check tampering. When he issued a check, the owner actually cut numbers through the check so it could not be altered.


http://www.lhf.org/cgi-bin/gygactivity.pl?320

[Redstone]

17. That's the one I was talking about above, and the only one

that seems to make sense.

Maybe the term leaked across to purchase orders, because a P.O. is also kind of a promise to send someone money?

Redstone

[benny05]

18. First use of the word cheque

According to the OED (which i found using it, but you could have found this on google or yahoo:



1706 Act 5 Anne c. 13 That the said Governor and Company shall..have the use and custody of the one part of all and euery the Checques, Indents, or Counterfoyls of all such Exchequer Bills..and from which the same Exchequer Bills shall be cut.

In 1706 the Bank of England had to sole authority to issue notes, checks, etc. Similar to another theory, they were books of sheets, and yes, they had to be torn or cut--in which the banker kept the original, and the check itself was written out to someone--the second part.

There is an article that discusses the beginnings of global capitalist structures, but unfortunately, the online version of that particular journal is not working properly through the firewall I have to go through.

Clear as mud? :-)

[Redstone]

19. A whole LOT clearer than mud, and going a long way to support

the theory of "cutting" meaning the same thing as "tearing out of a page."

I had my doubts about that theory, but your research does tend to support it.

Thanks for the info.

Redstone

[vajraroshana]

21. What about "clipping coupons"?

I've tried for years, to no avail, to explain to people that "clipping coupons" originally had nothing to do with the stuff that you get in your Sunday paper. It originally meant, and some people still know this, "clipping trust fund coupons", a kind of thing that ol' timer trust funders had that they'd clip out (actually tear out just like checks are torn out but they call that cutting a check).

In other words, in the same way that they didn't actually "clip" coupons, people don't "cut" checks. But maybe a long time ago before there were machines that perforated paper people did have to "clip" or "cut".

I don't know.