For Sunday, September 23: Don't be a hater

Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate. Unknown

What a concept. Truly! What if we all did this? What if we actually gave more attention to what we love than what we hate? So many examples come to mind - a lot of them controversial so I'm not going to use any of them because I'm not interested in starting a debate. :)
Suffice it to say that when we stand on "street corners" bashing the thing we hate we aren't telling people what we love. We are only sending the message of what we hate. If you've ever been guilty of this then have you noticed how people will "cross the street" to get away from you? It's not because they are convicted by your bashing, it's because they are disgusted. Just sayin'. You've done it too. You've seen up ahead someone standing on a "street corner" bashing something you love and you've "crossed the street" in disgust. We all do it.
But what if you and I took to the "streets" and promoted what we loved without bashing the thing we hate? Can you do it? Can I? Can we actually keep hate and bashing out of the message we are trying to share?

Butter someone up

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.

Call it a Day

The literal use of this phrase hails from 1838 when the phrase originally was "call it half a day" to mean leaving work early. (source) The modern use of the phrase is to indicate ending something due to false sense of accomplishment.

More bang for your buck

This phrase was used a lot in 1953 but an earlier citation puts it at 1940 in a Metals and Plastics Publications advertisement. Read about it here . The phrase means you get more for your money.

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