If I were to say, “You’re toast,” would you know what I meant? I expect most of you would. But do you know who first used this phrase?

Movie Phrases

You can thank Bill Murray and the movie, “Ghostbusters,” for transforming the word “toast” into an alternative for the word “dead.” But you didn’t have to see the movie to learn about the change. All you had to do was hear others—who had seen the movie—use the phrase. Many of the phrases we use today originated in books and movies.

In my January 2022 post, Did You Know Kids Mean Exactly What They Say?, I shared a story about Dad overhearing a group of people talking about someone who’d kicked the bucket. That phrase has been around for a long time. But the phrase, bucket list, came from the 2007 movie, The Bucket List. The film’s screenwriter invented the term back in 1999, but only with the release of the movie did it become a household phrase.

Did You Know…  Film & Movie Phrases

• Star Wars gave us many phrases, but two of the most popular are “the dark side” and “May the force be with you.”
• Toy Story gave us: “To infinity and beyond!”
• Arnold Schwarzenegger made “Hasta la vista, baby” popular in his movie Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
• Jerry Maguire provided us with the phrases: “You had me at hello” and “Show me the money.”
• Client Eastwood, aka Dirty Harry, in Sudden Impact, gave us: “Go ahead, make my day.”
• First used in the book, Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami but made famous in the movie, Forrest Gump, was the phrase: “Life is like a box of chocolates.”
• And who can forget Humphrey Bogart’s, “Here’s looking at you, kid,” from the 1942 film Casablanca.

Commonly Used Old Phrases

Some of the phrases we use every day are old. Like over 400 years old! And these phrases all originated from one author—William Shakespeare. Yes, many of the phrases the Bard wrote all those years ago are not only still in use today, but are extremely common.

Did You Know…  Shakespeare’s Phrases

• From Much Ado About Nothing comes the phrase, “lie low.”
• Othello gives us the “green-eyed monster.”
• “Heart of gold” comes from Henry V.
• The Tempest brings us, “fair play.”
• From The Taming of the Shrew, we get the phrase, “break the ice.”
• Ever been on a “wild goose chase?” Romeo and Juliet provided this one.
• From Julius Caesar comes, “It’s all Greek to me.”
• Found in both The Taming of the Shrew and As You Like It is the phrase, “forever and a day.”
• “Good riddance” appears in Merchant of Venice.
• To “kill with kindness”—which sounds like something a good Southern grandma would advise—is another phrase from Taming of the Shrew.
• The Merry Wives of Windsor provided the phrase, “as good luck would have it.”
• Though first used by Chaucer in 1405, Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice made the phrase, “Love is Blind,” popular.
• “The Game is Afoot” originated in Shakespeare’s Henry V, not with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective, Sherlock Holmes.
• Believe it or not, Shakespeare was the father of the knock-knock joke. “Knock, knock! Who’s there?” is found in Macbeth.

Last Word—Phrase

Whether you’ve voluntarily (or not) read any of Shakespeare’s plays, you’ve used his phrases almost every day. The English language is ever-changing, influenced by books, plays, movies, and now reality TV and social media. Who knows, maybe something you say or write will one day become a common phrase, too.