I went grocery shopping today. I kinda hate grocery shopping. I hate putting together a list and the putting away of the groceries. The actual shopping itself I am indifferent to. But really, for all my whining about it, I am grateful for it because it means that I can. It means that we have enough of an income that grocery shopping is possible, it means that we have enough that I can have options and choices for our meals. So I whine about it, I complain about it, I dread it but really I am grateful for the opportunity to do so.
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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