Needle in a haystack

The first use of this expression, and its likely origin, is by the writer Miguel de Cervantes, in his story Don Quixote de la Mancha written from 1605-1615. According to Bartlett's, the expression 'As well look for as needle in a bottle of hay' (translated from the original Spanish) appears in part III, chapter 10. 'Bottle' is an old word for a bundle of hay, taken from the French word botte, meaning bundle. Brewer (1870-94 dictionary and revisions) lists the full expression - 'looking for a needle in a bottle of hay' which tells us that the term was first used in this form, and was later adapted during the 1900s into the modern form.

And that modern use is - impossible search for something relatively tiny, lost or hidden in something that is relatively enormous.
(source)
I can't locate a clip of it but years back on The Amazing Race there was a needle in the haystack challenge and one team spent 8+ hours looking for it and never did locate it. Phil has to come out to where they were for the challenge to tell them they had been eliminated. It was AWFUL! The one team member who had to do the looking had cuts and scratches from the hay, she was bleeding. It was so frustrating to watch her try to find it - imagine how she felt as the one having to search!

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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