Why do we say ‘can’t hold a candle to…’?
What does the phrase mean, and when did we start using it?
![Before electric lights, craftsmen would employ someone as a second pair of hands, chiefly to hold candles close enough so they could see what they were doing. (Photo by Reski Iswar/EyeEm via Getty Images) Picture of a hand holding a candle](https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2019/07/12.-GettyImages-1129720647-cad340b-e1573639834892.jpg?quality=90&resize=980,654)
If someone or something is just not as good enough when compared to another, it is said that it can’t hold a candle to the far superior, much better version. So – as a hypothetical example – every other history magazine can’t hold a candle to History Revealed.
It doesn’t take much to illuminate the origins of the phrase. The light of a single candle will do. Before electric lights, craftsmen would employ someone as a second pair of hands, chiefly to hold candles close enough so they could see what they were doing.
As this was not a skilled job – the candle-holding apprentices were usually children – it would have been a grievous insult for trainee craftsmen to be told they weren’t good enough even to hold the candle, let alone do the expert, highly-trained work of the actual craftsmen.
This article was taken from BBC History Revealed magazine
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