Where did the phrase "can't hold a candle to you" originate?

Question

I understand the meaning, just wondered what the source was.

Answer 1

Apprentices used to be expected to hold the candle so that more experienced workmen were able to see what they were doing. Someone unable even to do that would be of low status indeed.

Answer 2

It sounds like a mixture of "can't hold a candle" to and "to carry a torch for".

: To hold a candle for - from Brewer's Phrase and Fable is:

: He is not fit to hold the candle to him. He is very inferior. The allusion is to link-boys who held candles in theatres and other places of night amusement. 2

: "Others say that Mr. Handel

: To Bonocini can't hold a candle."

: Swift.

: To carry a torch for may refer to the Greek and Roman custom of the wedding torch. In the wedding procession the bride carried a torch made of Hawthorne lit by the fire in her own house and to light the hearth of her new home.

CAN'T HOLD A CANDLE TO YOU - ".It goes back to Shakespeare's time, before there was any such thing as street lighting. In those days a person returning home from a tavern or theater would be accompanied by a linkboy, who carried a torch or candle. These linkboys were considered very inferior beings, so to say that Tom couldn't 'hold a candle to ' Harry meant that Tom was very much inferior to Harry." From the "Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins" by William and Mary Morris (HarperCollins, New York, 1977, 1988).

Old Flames Can't Hold A Candle To You

By: Pebe Sebert & Hugh Moffatt

Downtown tonight, I saw an old friend, someone who

I use to take comfort from long before I met you

I caught a spark from his eyes of forgotten desire

With a word, or a touch, I could have rekindled that fire

Old flames can't hold a candle to you

No one can light up the night like you do

Flickering embers of love

I've known one or two

But old flames can't hold a candle to you.

http://www.dollyon-line.com/archives/lyr... Accessed May 12, 2003.

TO CARRY THE TORCH FOR ONE - "It is the torch of love that is understood in this modern American term, though sometimes no more than the torch of loyalty, for the 'torchbearer' is one who is loud in his praise of a friend. But the torch has long been an emblem of enlightenment and of burning devotion, and, in 1775, Richard Sheridan used the expression, 'The torch of love,' in his epilog to 'The Rivals.'" From "A Hog on Ice" by Charles Earle Funk (1948, Harper & Row, New York).

Answer 3

The only explanation I could find was:

"I understand it to mean that the person has so much less skill or beauty, intelligence, talent, or some other good quality) than you that the comparison can't even be made. Apprentices used to hold candles to light the work that a master artist or craftsman was doing. The person who held the candle was at a lower level in his or her career than the master. What is implicit in the saying is that the person is not worthy even to hold the light for you."

http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board...