Imitation at its finest

Do something wonderful, people may imitate it. Albert Schweitzer

I love today's quote all on its own but I also love when I hear or read stories that back it up. I'm a firm believer in doing acts of kindness, random or not, and inspiring others to do the same. And I do believe that the majority of the time people are inspired to commit their own acts of kindness once they have been recipients. Just today I read on FB from a friend's status, "went through the drive thru at Starbucks this morning and the car in front of me paid for my order.. random acts of Christmas season kindness made my day!!" Wonderful and kind acts don't have to be grandiose in scale (financially, materially, etc) - just grandiose in thought and intention. A $4 coffee is grandiose, not because it was $4 my friend didn't have to spend but because someone, a stranger , extended beyond themselves to another person. And of course what is the response of my friend? She's going to pay it forward. That's imitation at its finest. How can you inspire imitation today?

Butter someone up

There are two probable origins for this idiom and I think both are equally plausible. The first one is that when you spread butter on bread you are buttering it up like one would do when trying to flatter someone. The second is in ancient India there was a practice of throwing balls of butter at statues to ask for favor, i.e. buttering them up. ( source ) When we use the phrase today we generally mean that extreme flattery is used to gain information or favor. It's not always necessarily a compliment.

Call it a Day

The literal use of this phrase hails from 1838 when the phrase originally was "call it half a day" to mean leaving work early. (source) The modern use of the phrase is to indicate ending something due to false sense of accomplishment.

More bang for your buck

This phrase was used a lot in 1953 but an earlier citation puts it at 1940 in a Metals and Plastics Publications advertisement. Read about it here . The phrase means you get more for your money.

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