Idioms that come from books and movies

1. Popcorn movie A popcorn movie is one that you watch almost purely for entertainment. While there are movies that will make you think and give you a new perspective on life, popcorn movies will not – nor are they made for that.

2. Get the show on the road If someone tells you to get the show on the road, they are urging you to get started on something! Rather than waiting somewhere for the preparation to finish, they want you to start, even if there might be some mistakes and things that hinder your progress.

3. Kick something off, kick off If you kick something off, you spark its beginning. If you are sitting in a meeting and no one says anything when the boss asks for feedback, it will be awkward. To make everyone more comfortable, you can be the first one to speak. If you do this, you kick off the conversation and get everyone started. This way, the conversation can start and someone else can continue it.

4. Sell out If you use sell out as a noun, it is not a good thing. This means that you have completely abandoned your principles in favor of something such as money. If you use sell out as verb or adjective describing an event, this is a great thing! This term is used when you have tickets to sell.

5. Live up to the hype If something (typically a movie or a show) lives up to the hype, it means two things. First, it means that there is enough interest in it, or hype. People (such as movie critics, bloggers, etc.) will get excited for something by generating hype for it.

6. Jump the shark This is a semi-derogatory term used to describe certain television shows (and occasionally some films) that have decreased in quality.

9. To be in the limelight If you are in the limelight, you are in the public eye.

10. A dog and pony show A dog and pony show is an event of some sort whose purpose is to rally people for their support and/or their money. If someone is trying to sell you something, they are likely to advertise something free to get you to join, show you a portion of what they have, and ask you to pay for the full thing.

8. To make a clown of yourself Clowns are supposed to be funny and entertaining people. Even if some people are scared of clowns, they are sometimes thought of as ridiculous people who do all kinds of things to make people laugh. Thus, if you make a clown of yourself, you are doing something that makes people laugh.

11. The show must go on Regardless of all the bad things that happen and the things that go wrong, an event or show that is planned must continue.

12. To be star-studded If something is star-studded, it means that it has all kinds of stars – movie, TV, music, and any other entertainment stars.

13. To steal the show Somebody that steals the show is one that the audience pays the most attention to, even though the creators of the show did not intend for her to be the star.

14. To run the show If you run the show, it means that you are in charge of every part of it.

15. A show stopper To be a show stopper, something has to literally stop the show.

16. Bob’s Your Uncle It’s as simple as that. A comedy about some strange guy named Bob that may or may not be a character’s uncle?

A catch-22 is widely understood to mean a predicament where the very nature of the problem prevents it from being resolved. It originated with Joseph Heller’s book Catch-22

If someone is referred to as “Jekyll and Hyde”, generally we understand that they have two distinct personalities: one gentle, refined and well-behaved, the other hedonistic, violent and hostile. This is lifted directly from the plot of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

English-speakers had been using the word “bore” for about a century, but Dickens was the first to turn the feeling into a noun. It appeared in his 1853 novel Bleak House.

What would you call a tropical nation with an unstable government and an over-reliance on the export of a single product? A “banana republic”, of course! The term is drawn from the novel Cabbages and Kings, published in 1904

From Alice in wonderland and through the looking glass we get: Mad as a hatter off with her head down the rabbit hole tweedle dee and tweedle dumb

1984 by George Orwell “Big Brother” – the totalitarian dictator, always watching and thus completely controlling his society. Orwell also created “Newspeak”, a fictional language that gave us gems like “doublethink” (being able to hold two contrary or opposing ideas at the very same thing).

17. Blue in the Face Weakened or tired after trying many times. 18. Hold Your Horses Wait a minute. 19. Kick the Bucket To die.