I know what the American saying "pushing the envelope" means, but where did it come from ?

Question

Why does one push an envelope ? Why not a mug, hedgehog or indeed a jar of pickle. What is the origin of this saying ?

Answer 1

Envelope means the boundaries that keep something contained. An envelope for stationery is just the boundaries of the folded paper that contains the letter.

A similar statement is when we "think outside the box".

Answer 2

It comes from mathematics, specifically as it is used in aeroplane design. It was popularised by Tom Wolfe’s book of 1979, The Right Stuff, about test pilots and the early space programme. It’s an excellent example of the way that a bit of specialised jargon known only to a few practitioners can move into the general language.

In mathematics, an envelope is the enclosing boundary of a set or family of curves that is touched by every curve in the system. This usage is known from the latter part of the nineteenth century. It’s also used in electrical engineering for the curve that you get when you connect the successive peaks of a wave. This envelope curve encloses or envelops all the component curves.

In aeronautics, the envelope is the outer boundary of all the curves that describe the performance of the aircraft under various conditions of engine thrust, speed, altitude, atmospheric conditions, and the like. It is generally taken to be the known limits for the safe performance of the craft.

Test pilots have to test (or push) these limits to establish exactly what the plane is capable of doing, and where failure is likely to occur — to compare calculated performance limits with ones derived from experience. Test pilots called this pushing the edge of the envelope in the 1950s and 1960s, but this was soon shortened.

Following Tom Wolfe’s book and film, the phrase began to move out into the wider world; the first recorded use in the more general sense of going (or attempting to go) beyond the limits of what is known to be possible came in the late 1980s.

Answer 3

This expression was first popularized in Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book "The Right Stuff," about test pilots and the early space program.
In aeronautics, an envelope describes the outer boundaries of the safe performance of an aircraft under various conditions like speed, altitude, etc. Pilots have been known to push these limits by going faster or higher than what the calculations say are safe in order to determine what the edges were in actual experience. They would say they were "pushing the edge of the envelope" and this eventually became shortened to what we know today.

Answer 4

Maybe from ballooning. The envelope has to be inflated before it will take off. I can't think of anything else

Answer 5

it's a very overused cliche - like blue sky thinking. I've never quite understood the need to talk in cliches when you could exercise your mind and use your linguistic skills to formulate an original utterance.