Best thing since sliced bread

Sliced bread was first introduced in 1928 by Otto Frederick Rohwedder from Davenport, Iowa, who invented the first loaf-at-a-time bread slicing machine. However, the first record of the idiom is thought to be in 1952, where the famous comedian Red Skelton said in an interview with the Salisbury Times: "Don't worry about television. It's the greatest thing since sliced bread". (source)

It's used today to gush about something new and exciting or to compare a new invention to the invention of sliced bread.

Comments

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.

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.

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