gorilla dust
n.— «More than 7,000 people showed up here today to witness what one business publication billed as a “clash of titans.” But the actual event amounted to little more than a cloud of what one of the combatants called “gorilla dust.”» —“Smith, Perot All Smiles At Encounter” by Warren Brown Washington Post Dec. 9, 1986. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Katie in Everett, Washington, is curious about the expression If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no need for tinkers. What is a tinker? She heard this phrase on the television series The Gilded Age, in response to a character who...