A fire truck went racing by me on my way home from work this evening and it struck me that I have yet to express in the Gratitude Attitude my gratefulness for emergency personnel - firefighting and police. Without their willingness to uphold order, investigate crimes, promote public safety, and a myriad of other duties for the citizens our our cities and towns we would be rather chaotic. They respond without hesitation to dangerous scenes and place themselves in the line of fire (literally and figuratively) to preserve safety.
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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