State of the art

Posted by ESC on August 01, 2006

In Reply to: State of the art Posted by Laura selwood on August 01, 2006

: what does state of the art mean? where did it come from? if it means new and improved then why is it a state?

Here is all I know:

From an entry under the chapter on Bureaucratese: the Talk of the White-Collar Baliwick in "Slang: the Authoritative Topic-by-topic Dictionary of American Lingos from All Walks of Life" by Paul Dickson (Pocket Books, New York, 1990, 1998). "state-of-the-art. Not out-of-date; current."