Caught red-handed

Being caught red-handed was a way to catch poachers back in the day, the red referring to the blood still on their hands from killing animals. (source) There seems to be some other ideas to the origin but this one seems to be the most plausible.

Today the phrase means being caught in the very act, for example the below picture of me when I was a wee one. 😏

When I was a wee one I got into my Grandma's powder puff and used it liberally on myself and covered the bathroom with the stuff. I was caught red-handed and a picture was taken because I was just too cute to scold! :)

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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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