"SMOKE AND MIRRORS" This idiom is used to describe a situation in which someone is using clever trickery to fool or cheat someone. Just as magicians, in their acts, use tricks such as special lighting effects to amaze the audience, they sometimes use smoke screens and unnoticed mirrors to do their “magic.” Offstage, the use of “smoke and mirrors” by advertisers, politicians, and criminals is a troubling fact of life—while skillful magicians use “smoke and mirrors” to entertain, bad guys use them to scam innocent victims. Watch out for “smoke and mirrors”!
"BUCKET LIST" Your “bucket list” is basically your to-do list of future dreams. Before you die—“kick the bucket”—you have many happy things that you would like to do: sky dive, eat at a three-star restaurant, win a Nobel Prize, for instance. But, while“bucket list” is a very positive plan for future success, the phrase it comes from is not so nice.
No one is quite sure why the very old expression “kick the bucket” means “die,” but it does. Some say it refers to the last act of a person hanging himself—he kicks the bucket out from under him to complete his suicide—nasty! That explanation sounds more believable, however, than the next one. “Buchet” in Old French meant a butcher shop’s support beam used for hanging up, by their feet, animals about to be killed for their meat, so the last thing a dying animal would do is kick the “buchet.” That explanation seems a bit less likely than the suicide one. Take your choice, but, regardless of its source, “bucket list” is a cheerful, optimistic plan for many good things to come.
'SPEAK OF THE DEVIL" This common idiom is a shortened form of "Speak of the devil, and he shall appear." Unless you are a devil worshiper, that event is not desirable, so the original saying was a strong warning. It dates from the 16th century in England.
Today, we say it when a person, just under discussion, suddenly appears in person. The idiom also might be used when a recently discussed topic immediately becomes reality, such as seeing a news report about the same subject, right after discussing it.
But, don't worry. Today, the idiom has lost all of its dark early meaning; now, it is just a harmless observation of coincidence.
"STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH" This idiom means "directly from a reliable source." It is clearly related to horse racing and the betting that traditionally occurs wherever horses race each other. Bettors are always looking for hot tips about good horses to bet on. Most of the time, those tips come from knowledgeable humans, but the best possible tip would come from a talking race horse who would really know the likely winner. So, information from an expert source is called "straight from the horse's mouth." The idiom has other supposed explanations, but this one seems the most likely. It dates from the nineteenth century in England.
"IT'S RAINING CATS AND DOGS" This idiom means "It is raining very hard!" As with many old English expressions, no one knows exactly where this strange idiom comes from, but there are a couple theories. Take your choice.
A. Cats and dogs were associated in northern European myths with storms and the weather god Odin.
B. Cats and dogs would drown during heavy rains in English towns and wash down the street; people of limited intelligence thought the dead animals had fallen with the rain from the sky.
One of the earliest uses of this idiom is in 1740 when the English writer Jonathan Swift says, “I knew Sir John would go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs.”
