I was thinking today about voices. I'm grateful that we are given a voice to use to sing, protest, agree, teach, fight, etc. I'm grateful that in the country I live in I still have freedom to use my voice even when it doesn't agree with the government. I'm grateful that people who have damaged vocal cords or undeveloped vocal cords still have a voice in all the same ways as someone with functioning vocal cords has. Our voices can make actual noise or can be written. Sometimes our voices can even communicate through facial expression! When I think of voice I don't think of just the actual sounds but I think of the message that we all have to share with others no matter what that may be.
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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