My gratitude for auto repair shops specifically extends to the one we frequent and love. Today, in the freak storm we got in the midst of an otherwise beautiful weather week, I slid into a curb by no choice of my own and broke my car. :( It kinda sucked. It was still driveable, not safely but whatever, so we got it over to our guy. We love our auto mechanic, he's honest and fair in price. I'm grateful for him because he can do what my husband and I definitely can't fix cars. And since we seem to have that need more often than we would like I am grateful for those who can do it for us.
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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