I am grateful for my hearing. I try not to take it for granted because I know there are people who have never had the pleasure of hearing, who have lost their hearing as they have aged or had a traumatic experience, or who have hearing that is not 100% for a variety of reasons. And while I try not to take it for granted I know that I do without realizing it. With my hearing I get to know the sound of my children's voices and laughs, the sound of my husband, the horns of vehicles, the tweets of birds, the soundtracks that accompany movies, etc. I even get to hear the sound of my own voice - which in my head sounds WAY different than it actually does - that I don't particularly like but it's still I privilege I don't want to take lightly. When I see videos like the one I have included below I remember how grateful I am for my hearing.
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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