Today I'm grateful for Excedrin Migraine because my migraine responded to it. I haven't had a headache like today's in a couple of months at least and it hit me like a Mack truck. But the Excedrin Migraine took the edge off and eventually calmed it down enough that I feel fragile but not like my head is going to explode and cause a mess. ;)
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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