For Friday, January 4: Afraid of quicksand? Then don't lie

Truth is the only safe ground to stand upon. Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Today's quote could cover many different topics of truth but I want to discuss the most basic fact of truth and that is honesty.
When we choose to tell the truth, to be honest, then we are standing on firm ground. When we choose to engage in dishonesty then we quickly can and will find ourselves in quicksand. As a parent I've been reminded of this fact about telling the truth with my own children. Teaching them to always tell the truth has been a needed refresher course for me. Through them I have seen why we are tempted to be dishonest and what happens when we choose that course of action. I have observed that we are most often tempted to be dishonest when we are scared of the consequences of whatever it is that needs to be disclosed. This clearly shows how faulty our thinking is because the consequences of being dishonest and covering up far outweighs whatever the original consequences may be. I have raised my children telling them to tell the truth because the choice to be dishonest combined with whatever they feel the need to lie about will be greater than the consequence for just being honest about the thing.
How about you? Do you find yourself standing on the firm ground of truth more often than sinking in the quicksand of dishonesty?

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.

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.

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.

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