Speak of the devil

The phrase is old and appears in various Latin and Old English texts from the 16th century. The Italian writer Giovanni Torriano has the first recorded version in contemporary English, in Piazza Universale, 1666: "The English say, Talk of the Devil, and he's presently at your elbow."
Also, in 'Cataplus, a mock Poem', 1672 - re-printed in Hazlitt's Proverbs, "Talk of the Devil, and see his horns." Read more about the evolution of this phrase here.

When people say the phrase these days it is a reference to someone who appears unexpectedly while being talked about.

Comments

Call it a Day

The literal use of this phrase hails from 1838 when the phrase originally was "call it half a day" to mean leaving work early. (source) The modern use of the phrase is to indicate ending something due to false sense of accomplishment.

More bang for your buck

This phrase was used a lot in 1953 but an earlier citation puts it at 1940 in a Metals and Plastics Publications advertisement. Read about it here . The phrase means you get more for your money.

Butter someone up

There are two probable origins for this idiom and I think both are equally plausible. The first one is that when you spread butter on bread you are buttering it up like one would do when trying to flatter someone. The second is in ancient India there was a practice of throwing balls of butter at statues to ask for favor, i.e. buttering them up. ( source ) When we use the phrase today we generally mean that extreme flattery is used to gain information or favor. It's not always necessarily a compliment.

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