Weird right? It is weird but here's another Gratitude Attitude in which I am taking something that is annoying and trying to put a positive spin on it. Tonight we served at the shelter we come alongside once a month. Usually the residents there are cordial if not very happy and grateful. But tonight we had some extremely ungrateful people which annoyed me to no end. Some might argue that they are just so negative because of their circumstances. I don't buy that excuse especially after having worked with homeless people for a few years now. Anyway. We had some really ungrateful people come through the line and then a few people after them would be someone overflowing with gratefulness. I became super grateful for the grateful people. Their gratefulness overshadowed the ungratefulness of the others. So I'm grateful for ungrateful people today because they remind me what ungratefulness looks, acts, and sounds like and that reminds me that I don't want to be ungrateful. Gratefulness can always be found and expressed.
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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