smoke [OE] Old English smoke was first recorded used of smoking tobacco at the start of the 17th century, when you could also be described as ‘drinking’ tobacco. A big city has been called the Smoke or the Big Smoke since the 1840s—the first examples refer not to London but to Australian towns. A piece of indisputable and incriminating evidence can be described as a smoking gun. The phrase came to prominence during the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s. An incriminating tape revealed President Nixon’s wish to limit the FBI’s involvement in the investigation, prompting Republican congressman Barber T. Conable to observe: ‘I guess we have found the smoking pistol, haven’t we?’ There’s no smoke without fire dates back at least to the 15th century, though the same idea appears in the work of the Roman comic dramatist Plautus—’the flame is right next to the smoke’—and in a 13th-century French proverb. The phrase smoke and mirrors refers to the illusion created by conjuring tricks and can be traced back to the US political columnist Jimmy Breslin, writing in 1975: ‘All political power is primarily an illusion…Mirrors and blue smoke, beautiful blue smoke rolling over the surface of highly polished mirrors…If somebody tells you how to look, there can be seen in the smoke great, magnificent shapes, castles and kingdoms, and maybe they can be yours.’