There's no known evidence bucket list was used as a "list of things to do before you die" before the movie.
The OED has bucket list from 29 June 2006, about the film "The Bucket List".
- There's no evidence in Nexis of bucket list before 2006.
- There's nothing in Usenet and Google Groups for "my bucket list" before the OED.
- There's nothing relevant in Usenet [via Google Groups] for "bucket list" much before the OED. [Lots of unrelated programming bucket lists.]
I think it came from the movie, by scriptwriter Justin Zackham. The most likely origin is it comes from the phrase "to kick the bucket", meaning to die.
Antedatings
Here's a one-day antedating from Variety referring to the film [found via Usenet]:
Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman are committed to star in “The Bucket List.”
Via the same Usenet group, a 16 June 2006 blogpost quoting a 11 June 2006 Usenet post referred to the script:
So it seems pretty solid that Scott is, in fact, not the author of The Bucket List.
But obviously the script had already been written and there'll be early script drafts somewhere.
Dubious claims
Slate Magazine searched Google Books and claimed a 2004:
In 2004, the term was used—perhaps for the first time?—in the context of things to do before one kicks the bucket [a phrase in use since at least 1785] in the book Unfair & Unbalanced: The Lunatic Magniloquence of Henry E. Panky, by Patrick M. Carlisle. That work includes the sentences, “So, anyway, a Great Man, in his querulous twilight years, who doesn’t want to go gently into that blacky black night. He wants to cut loose, dance on the razor’s edge, pry the lid off his bucket list!”
But I think it's misdated. Carlisle's book may have been first published in 2004, but the two full view editions in Google Books are copyright 2003-2010 and 2003-2011. The phrase also appears in the author biography at the end of the book and it's not clear when that was written.
The phrase appears on the author's biography on his own website, but not in any of the pages I checked in the Internet Archive.
Also, a Wordwizard forum post claims a 9 November 2005 on a AP Images caption of actors in a scene from the movie, but it must be wrong seeing as the script and actors were only announced in 2006.
Computing
Bucket list has been used in computing literature much prior to the film, often referring to algorithms for "bucket sort", a way of sorting data. Wikipedia lists a number of other bucket metaphors in computing. A bucket, also a bin, is sometimes a buffer, or place to discretely distribute data, and can be of fixed size.
I think it's safe to say there's no link between this and the modern meaning of things to do before you kick the bucket.
At the White House Correspondents Dinner last month, President Barack Obama had some fun with a familiar two-word phrase: “bucket list.”
“After the midterm elections, my advisers asked me, ‘Mr. President, do you have a bucket list?’” Mr. Obama said. “And I said, well, I have something that rhymes with ‘bucket list’....”
The president’s devil-may-care attitude about the end of his second term was good for a laugh, and it also pointed to how the meaning of “bucket list” has subtly shifted since it was popularized by the movie “The Bucket List” in 2007.
The “bucket list” originally meant a list of things that one would like to do before dying—that is, before “kicking the bucket.” In the film, Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson play terminal cancer patients living it up while they still can.
But now, a “bucket list” doesn’t have to be so morbid. It can simply be a wish list to be accomplished by a certain deadline—like the end of Mr. Obama’s term of office. Similarly, you can find many suggestions online for your “summer bucket list”: things to do before autumn comes.
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All of this has moved far from the idiom of “kicking the bucket.” That expression, etymologists conjecture, originated with a now-forgotten meaning of “bucket”: a beam, probably from the Old French word “buquet,” meaning “balance.” The idiom referred to hanging up animals for slaughter, who would then, in their death throes, kick that beam.
Back in 1999, the screenwriter Justin Zackham was thinking about that phrase when he began composing a checklist that he called, “Justin’s list of things to do before he kicks the bucket.” After finishing the list, he told me via email, he thought of a more succinct title for it: “Justin’s bucket list.”
After a few years of keeping his “bucket list” pinned to his bulletin board, Mr. Zackham realized that it could serve as the basis for a film script, and he wrote the screenplay for “The Bucket List.” In production, he and director Rob Reiner toyed with other, more straightforward titles, Mr. Zackham said, “but everyone seemed to like it, so it stuck.”
The film’s release brought the phrase into common parlance, and, as a testament to how natural and idiomatic it sounds, many people assume the term must have long predated the movie.
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Since then, as the “bucket list” has become entrenched in the popular consciousness, people often forget its roots in “kicking the bucket.” Some might imagine instead that the wish list figuratively fills a bucket, giving the phrase a new metaphorical foundation.
And how does the creator of the original “bucket list” feel about the mutation of the phrase? “It’s been quite fun actually,” Mr. Zackham said. “I get a kick out of all of the permutations because they’re all additive—different ways to make your life [or even just your summer] better.”
But he is proudest of how the phrase has inspired people. Alice Pyne, a British teenager with terminal cancer, blogged her own “bucket list” before she died in 2013. A charity to provide holidays for dying children lives on in her name, as does her wish “to get everyone to have a bucket list.”
Bucket list is a one of those rare terms in English with a definite etymology. We will examine the definition of the expression bucket list, where it came from and some examples of its use in sentences.
A bucket list is a list of things a person wants to do, learn or experience before he dies. Items on a bucket list may be considered life goals. These items vary from person to person, and bucket list ideas may include something to accomplish or an achievement such as obtaining a doctorate or building a log cabin. Items on a bucket list may include learning how to do certain things such as play chess, knit a sweater, run a marathon, surf or sail. Other items that frequently appear on bucket lists are riding in a hot air balloon or helicopter, trying a bungee jump, going on a cruise or a safari, skydiving, going on a scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef, engaging in a swim with dolphins or sharks, making a hike in the Alps, and rafting the Grand Canyon. Traveling is usually on the list of things to do on a bucket list, and may include visits to Stonehenge, Oktoberfest in Germany, seeing the northern lights or aurora borealis in Alaska or the Scandinavian countries, visiting Nepal, Mount Everest, Machu Picchu, Thailand, Mt. Etna volcano, the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal or other wonders of the world. Some people dream of visiting all the continents on Earth, more ambitious people harbor dreams of visiting every country in the world. When the term bucket list first came into use, it was associated with a list that someone who was terminally ill might make, as a series of last wishes before dying. Today, even young people make a bucket list of things they want to do, learn and accomplish before they die, and spend their lifetime attempting to tick off or check off items on that list. The idea is to live life to the fullest. The term bucket list is surprisingly recent. It may be traced directly to the movie The Bucket List, which was released in 2007. The movie starred Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson as two terminally ill elderly gentlemen who make a list of things to do before they die–or kick the bucket. The term bucket list was coined by the writer of this movie, Justin Zackham, who had a personal list of things to do he called “Justin’s List of Things to Do Before I Kick the Bucket”, eventually shortened to “Justin’s Bucket List”. The term bucket list has become extremely popular in a short period of time. The plural form of bucket list is bucket lists.
Examples
Bandwagon Fallacy Examples
The bandwagon fallacy describes believing something is true or acceptable only because it is popular. The fallacy is also known as “jumping on the bandwagon” or argumentum ad populum [“appeal to the people”]. These bandwagon movements can range from popular fads to dangerous political movements. Here are some examples of ways that people jump on the bandwagon.
First Grade Synonyms and Antonyms Worksheets
If you need a first grade synonyms and antonyms worksheet, these options should work whether you’re in a classroom or at home. Each worksheet features unique synonyms and antonyms, so they don’t duplicate each other. Use your imagination to complete them on the computer screen.