I know I have already covered sleep for a gratitude attitude but I am thankful for naps. And while they are sleep, they are abbreviated sleep. ;) And today I needed a nap. I needed the rest it provides. I needed, perhaps, the escape it can provide. For me naps are a catch-twenty-two. I'm old enough now that if I take a nap during the day I can't sleep at night but sometimes I just need the nap even though I know it's going to bite me later on. But today I suppose I'm thankful for naps because I took a three hour one and still could sleep through the night. Ah....
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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