Speaking of "cut the check",

[Deja Q]

what do "cut the mustard" and "cut the cheese" mean?

:shrug:

[Reverend_Smitty]

1. I'm guessing here but...

maybe the origin of cutting the cheese goes back to when someone would cut open a wheel of stinky cheese and I guess the smell reminded them of well...you know

[Deja Q]

2. Yes, there's nothing quite like the smell of egg-flavored cheese...

:puke:

[eyepaddle]

3. I forget the specifics

but I think "cut the mustard" is a corruption of "cut the muster" meaning to pass muster. Again this is from fuzzy memory but I want to say it was post civil war military in origin.

[mcscajun]

4. From "The Dictionary of Clichés" - by James Rogers

Cut the Mustard. Do something well, particularly when it is suspected that one's ability may have declined due to age, infirmity or lack of practice. In American slang of the late 19th century "mustard" came to mean not just the condiment but something that was the best of anything. O. Henry's Cabbages and Kings in 1894 had this example: "I'm not headlined in the bills, but I'm the mustard in the salad just the same." Mustard grows as a plant, and "cutting the mustard" in the sense of being able (or still able) to do something may have come from that.

"The Dictionary of Clichés: Over 2,000 Popular and Amusing Clichés -- Their Meanings and Origins"

[allalone]

5. don't know but

I'm retired from accounting and that expression always bugged me. I never use it.