To call a spade a spade

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To "call a spade a spade" is to speak honestly and directly about a topic, specifically topics that others may avoid speaking about due to their sensitivity or embarrassing nature. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1913) defines it as

“

To be outspoken, blunt, even to the point of rudeness; to call things by their proper names without any “beating about the bush”.

”

Its ultimate source is Plutarch's Apophthegmata Laconica (178B) which has την σκαφην σκαφην λεγοντας. σκαφη means "basin, trough", but it was mis-translated as ligo "shovel" by Erasmus in his Apophthegmatum opus. Lucian De Hist. Conscr. (41) has τα συκα συκα, την σκαφην δε σκαφην ονομασων "calling a fig a fig, and a trough a trough".

The phrase was introduced to English in 1542 in Nicolas Udall's translation of Erasmus, Apophthegmes, that is to saie, prompte saiynges. First gathered by Erasmus:

Philippus aunswered, that the Macedonians wer feloes of no fyne witte in their termes but altogether grosse, clubbyshe, and rusticall, as they whiche had not the witte to calle a spade by any other name then a spade.

The Oxford English Dictionary records a more forceful variant, "to call a spade a bloody shovel", attested since 1919.

The phrase predates the use of the word "spade" as an ethnic slur, which was not recorded in usage until 1928; however, in contemporary U.S. society, the idiom is often avoided due to potential confusion with the modern racial slur against African-Americans.^[1].

[edit] See also

• Duck test

[edit] Notes

[edit] Links

• "Call A Spade A Spade" - GoEnglish.com