I kinda love popcorn. Oh sure I love some of the "gourmet" kinds but at heart I'm a purist. A little bit of salt and a little bit of butter. Seriously, no movie popcorn for me - too much butter and salt. Just a touch is better in my opinion. It might seem silly to be grateful for popcorn but when my taste buds are grateful then I am too. I'm grateful for the person that looked at a kernel of corn and either thought, "What would happen if..." or did it by accident and discovered popcorn! I'm not really concerned with how it came to be just grateful that it did.
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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