How did the expression kick the bucket come about when someone dies?



Answers:
according to a book called "Slang Down the Ages" by Jonathon Green, there are actually two possible origins for "kick the bucket." It seems that one method of slaughtering a pig used to involve hanging it upside down from a beam by means of a piece of wood called a "bucket." The dying animal would, naturally, "kick the bucket."

The other possible origin refers to a method of hanging oneself, which involved standing on a bucket, tightening the noose, and then kicking away the bucket. Since the phrase "kick the bucket" dates back to at least the 16th century, neither of these can definitively be called the "genuine" origin.
There was this childrens game around before tv & video games.

it was kind of like tag, or olly olly ox & free but I'm not exactly straight on the rules. I read about it several years ago... I think in the book "how to eat fried worms"

Basically, the game is over once the person who is trying to kick the bucket or or tin can set up in the play space as the other kids try to stop them, kicks the bucket.

Bucket kicked = game over
game over = death
i think it's because long time ago when you try to hang someone, they would stand on a bucket with the rope tied around their neck, and then someone would kick the bucket underneath them, and well you know the rest
A likely source of the phrase comes from pig farming. One method of slaughtering a pig used to involve hanging it upside down from a beam in the barn designed for the purpose and called a "bucket." In its death throes, the dying animal would then, naturally, kick the bucket.

‘Bucket’ existed as an English word meaning beam since around 1570, probably drawn from the Old French word buquet, meaning balance.

Another theory of the origin of kick the bucket traces the phrase to a method of hanging oneself by standing on a bucket, tightening the noose, and then kicking away the bucket.

Another suggestion is that a lynch mob would stand their victim on a bucket as they threw the rope over a tree branch before kicking the bucket away.

http://www.lovatts.com.au/trivia/wordsan...

"I'm going over the Big Ridge."
"He's pushing up daisies".
"He bought the farm"
"He's bought the Big One"
He's shuffled off this mortal coil.
He's gone to the last roundup
He went to a Texas cakewalk (hung)
"Hey, she just croaked,
and "...kicked the bucket."
See the movie: "Around the World in Eighty Days" and check out Jimmy Durante's deah scene!

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