Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Adjective Phrase 71. The adjective phrase today is up to
snuff. Okay. If somebody wants a screenshot, do it right now. All right. Let's get right to it,
If someone says that something is up to snuff, he or she means that something is good enough
or of acceptable quality or of a suitable standard. So that's the main way we use it today.
There is a second meaning here which is an old use. It was mostly a British use meaning mentally
alert or sharp. You know, so your, your thinking is clearer. You're sharper. All right. Let's continue. The
origin of this phrase is believed to come from a play by John Poole called "Hamlet Travestie"
in 1811. his play was a parody. Remember , when we say a parody that's when you like copy another
person's work and then you make a joke out of it. You change things. Just like today on the Internet
there's a lot of people that copy songs of other artists and they change all the lyrics and they
make a joke out of it. So that's kind of like a parody of a song. Okay. So Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Here is the quote." He knows very well the game we are after Zooks he's up to stuff " All right.
The game where after means they probably have some tricky plan or some tricky game and maybe this guy
he's up to snuff. He's mentally sharp you know, he he's caught on to this. So basically meaning he is
not easily fooled. He knows what we're doing. You know , so he can figure it out. All right. Let's
continue. Many believe this British use in the 1800/ s derived from snuff. The powdered tobacco
and the stimulating ... stimulating effect one got from inhaling you know, blowing it up one's
nose. Thus making one sharper. If you go back in time. Sometimes you see people used to carry
around snuff boxes. So I guess they used to take some out you know, if you see something like from
the 1800's or something took some stuff out and they used to (sniffing sounds ) up their nose with
it. That was kind of normal at that time. And i guess it made their mind a bit sharper. So they
probably just thought of it as like a type of medicine or something that helped to you
know make your mind sharper, Maybe when you got tired or you needed some extra you know, mental
activity or something like that. You know, so you've had clearer thinking . All right. Let's
continue. The word snuff is believed to have entered English... it basically came from Dutch
in this word "snuffaback" which came from stuffen which meant to draw up into the nose. Thus to
snuff, "taback" was like tobacco ... was the Dutch word for tobacco. So that's kind of where that
came from. All right. Let's continue. All right. In the 1900's, now that we're getting closer to
the modern meaning that we have here. That we use often. There was a shift. A shift meaning a change
in the meaning of to up to standard which is what we mean today. You know,
we mean that something is acceptable. It's of an acceptable quality. This may be connected
to another phrase at that time which was "up to scratch" Okay. Which had the same meaning.
That something was you know, of an acceptable standard. That phrase came from the prize fighting
in which scratch was a line on the floor that a participant had to touch
with his toe to show he was ready to fight. Okay. So then you know he shows that you know, now he's
up to the standard. He's ready to fight. He's ready to you know, he's ready for the battle. All
right. Let's continue. And we got three examples just to show just how we would use it today.
I don't think he is a good candidate for that job. His skills are not up to snuff. You know,
they're not of us an acceptable level. All right. Number two. The boss thinks his work performance
has not been up to snuff. You know, not of up to an acceptable level. And the third one here.
His speaking ability is not up to snuff. Okay. Good. You know,
because maybe they were going to choose this guy to give a presentation. All right. Anyway,
I hope you got it. I hope it's clear. I hope it's informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.