"We realized that the important thing was not the film itself but that which the film provoked."
Fernando Solanas
Search This Blog
Day 203: Fragility
I'm grateful for the fragility of life, which would encompass relationships and that is specifically where my thoughts have been centered as of late. I'm grateful for the reminders that my relationships are fragile because that means I need to "handle with care." I'm not always great at handling my fragile relationships with care. Sometimes I think I probably treat them this way:
I forget more often than I remember that my relationships are something to handle with care and if I don't I will break the fragile bond that connects my heart to others. So while I am challenged and frustrated with myself for not respecting the fragility of the people in my life, I am also grateful for the reminder to be more mindful of the practice to "handle with care."
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.
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.
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.
Comments
Post a Comment