Today I was blessed by the selfless act of some, of all people, middle school boys. I don't know when it happened and I know it's been floating around Facebook and other places for at least a couple of weeks but today I finally got a chance to watch the story. It made me cry and it blessed me, it made me incredibly grateful for these young men who did something so amazing in the midst of our self-driven culture. If you haven't seen it, or if you have, watch it. You'll see what I mean!
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.
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