It's the time of year where family, or the absence of it, is perhaps more evident than other times of the year. Families are complicated units of people trying to do life together, bound together by blood or desire. When a family is healthy and mostly functioning well (let's face it, all families are a wee bit dysfunctional) it is a vital part of your life and of theirs. Here's 10 reasons why. (There's some interesting, or perhaps obvious is the better word, typos in the article but I'm trusting you'll be able to read around them.)
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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