Common_Errors_in_English_usage

different.
"You've got mail" should be "you have mail."
The "have" contracted in phrases like this is merely an auxiliary verb,
not an expression of possession. It is not a redundancy. Compare:
"You've sent the mail."
it's "cut the muster," not "cut the mustard."
This etymology seems plausible at first. Its proponents often trace it
to the American Civil War. We do have the analogous expression "to pass
muster," which probably first suggested this alternative; but although
the origins of "cut the mustard" are somewhat obscure, the latter is
definitely the form used in all sorts of writing throughout the
twentieth century. Common sense would suggest that a person cutting a
muster is not someone being selected as fit, but someone eliminating the
unfit.
Here is the article on "cut the mustard" from the "faq" (frequently
asked questions list) of the UseNet newsgroup alt.usage.english:
This expression meaning "to achieve the required standard" is first
recorded in an O. Henry story of 1902: "So I looked around and found a
proposition [a woman] that exactly cut the mustard."
It may come from a cowboy expression, "the proper mustard", meaning "the
genuine thing", and a resulting use of "mustard" to denote the best of
anything. O. Henry in Cabbages and Kings (1894) called mustard "the main
attraction": "I'm not headlined in the bills, but I'm the mustard in the
salad dressing, just the same." Figurative use of "mustard" as a
positive superlative dates from 1659 in the phrase "keen as mustard",
and use of "cut" to denote rank (as in "a cut above") dates from the
18th century.
Other theories are that it is a corruption of the military phrase "to
pass muster" ("muster", from Latin "monstrare"="to show", means "to
assemble (troops), as for inspection"); that it refers to the practice
of adding vinegar to ground­up mustard seed to "cut" the bitter taste;
that it literally means "cut mustard" as an example of a difficult task,
mustard being a relatively tough crop that grows close to the ground;
and that it literally means "cut mustard" as an example of an easy task
(via the negative expression "can't even cut the mustard"), mustard
being easier to cut at the table than butter.
The more­or­less synonymous expression "cut it" (as in "sorry, doesn't
cut it") seems to be more recent and may derive from "cut the mustard".
it's "carrot on a stick," not "carrot or stick."
Authoritative dictionaries agree, the original expression refers to
offering to reward a stubborn mule or donkey with a carrot or
threatening to beat it with a stick and not to a carrot being dangled