The tastes, the scents, the colors of citrus. All of those make me incredibly cheerful and grateful. I feel grateful that I have the ability to see, smell, and taste those citrus things I love so much. Their bright colors and upbeat scents cheer me, which isn't a coincidence btw. It's actually a scent that aromatherapy incorporates on purpose for its elements of stress relief among other benefits. (Click here for more on that.) Citrus makes me so cheerful that I lean toward it in lotions, candles, baking.
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