I was thinking today about being grateful for anticipation. Sometimes I am and other times I anticipate with dread. But as I step back from the dread moments of it and look at it more closely I realize I am grateful for it in all forms. Anticipation gives me something to look forward to, something to prepare for, something to think about. Anticipation can be delicious and butterflies-in-the-stomach inducing. It can bring relief, solutions, answers, closure. I'm choosing to look at it in a new and broader way.
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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