The Phrases

Where everyday sayings actually come from — traced to the earliest documented use, with the evidence on screen.

Most phrase-origin content repeats stories that were invented in the twentieth century. This channel checks. Sixteen of the most confidently repeated origins in English turn out to be false: there was never a law about the thickness of a stick, Pandora never had a box, and "riding shotgun" was written thirty years after the Old West ended.

Every phrase gets the same treatment — earliest appearance in print, the likely origin, the popular story, and a verdict. Sometimes the verdict is that nobody knows, and we say that out loud too.