I really, really, really dislike (okay, I hate) washing dishes by hand. I actually can't find the adequate words to describe my dislike of washing dishes by hand. So I am incredibly grateful for my dishwasher. I love my dishwasher, I treat it kindly so that it stays with us for a long, long time! Every time I have to wash dishes by hand (we have a few that aren't safe to wash in the dishwasher) I am grateful all over again for my dishwasher. How about you? What appliance do you have that makes you grateful?
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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