If English speaking people have one thing in common, it's that we love butter.
From England to America and Ireland to Scotland, butter is beloved.
So, it's no surprise that popular expressions or idioms based on butter exist in English.
Have you ever heard one about cream cheese.
I think not.
Let's talk about bread and butter, or, earning your bread and butter.
Your ‘bread and butter’ is your main or only source of income.
It’s how you pay your rent and basic bills.
It’s your primary occupation or the main aspects of that job.
There was also a time when to butter your bread meant to secure a decent living.
Sometimes, as well, we use the expression bread and butter to mean a dull, tedious,
and unrewarding job.
A factory worker on an assembly line might say “It’s bread and butter work.”
The main product that your company makes, the one that earns most of the profits, is
your bread and butter product.
It may also refer to common or everyday things.
The expression even found its way into boxing to describe a boxer’s main punch or combo:
For example, "His bread and butter punch is the right hook."
Bread and butter, similarly, can be used to describe the main and most important components
of anything.
"Don’t quarrel with your bread and butter" means don’t give up the way you earn your
living.
What we call today a “thank-you note” might once have been called a bread and butter
letter, which is a letter written to thank someone for their hospitality.
This usage occurred in America around the end of the 1800s.
Of course, bread and butter go together and we know that bread is one of the most important
foods in all of history.
Bread has thus found its way into countless expressions, and superstitions.
In fact, bread and butter was once considered a charm to bring good luck.
Once bread has been buttered, the two cannot be separated.
This inseparable nature led to the superstition.
Saying 'bread and butter' was thought to protect friendships, or more specifically, to keep
friends from being separated.
This may seem strange, but the idea of something coming between two friends wasn't always figurative.
No, it was once thought that something physically getting between two friends was bad luck and
would separate the friends, thus ending the friendship.
You should, therefore, for example, avoid letting a dog walk between you and your friend.
But, if it should happen, say bread and butter to prevent the friendship from ending.
The charm also protects against general quarrels among friends.
When it comes to friends, and many things in life, you have to Know Which Side Your
Bread is Buttered On.
The buttered side of the bread is the good side.
We only butter bread on one side, so one side is always better than the other.
To know what side your bread is buttered on then, means to know what is good for you.
If you “bite the hand that feeds you” then you do not know what side your bread
is buttered on.
If you are rude to people who can help you advance, then likewise, you do not know which
side your bread is buttered on.
This means that we can’t have our cake and eat it too, which leads us to the related
expression:
If you want your bread buttered on both sides, you want more than a person should reasonably
expect to have.
So, if you butter your bread on both sides, you are burning the candle at both ends, and
may be doing too much, and living too fast, etc.
At the same time, the expression might refer to someone who lives in opulent surroundings,
or who has a lot of wealth: “He has his bread buttered on both sides,” might be
said of someone who lives in a palace filled with servants, marble, and expensive furniture.
If a person has their bread buttered on both sides, you might want to butter them up to
gain their favor, and hopefully some kind of advantage.
To butter someone up is to flatter them excessively.
When you are a real kiss-up, you might “lay it on thick.”
Buttering someone up always has the connotation of being insincere, and done solely in the
hopes of getting what you want.
When you want to land a big contract, you might have to butter them up to get them to
agree.
A related Yiddish expression is to schmear, which means to flatter or to bribe.
There’s that cream cheese again!
Usually, a brown-noser who butters up important people will appear as if:
This is an old and rarely heard idiom which refers to someone who looks innocent and as
if they would never do anything wrong.
Butter usually melts in your hand, let alone your mouth, so a person like this always appears
calm and in control, and perhaps, self-satisfied, like the cat that ate the canary.
This person might look quite gentle and innocent, but looks are deceiving.
If you have watched the TV show Cold Justice you’ve seen people in interrogations about
whom we might say, butter wouldn’t melt in their mouth.
Of course, we usually don’t put butter in our mouths, without first smearing it on something
else.
After all, Butter to Butter is No Relish.
This means exactly what it seems to mean.
Butter is something we use to elevate something more basic and substantial.
We don’t put butter on butter!
This very old, and, as far as I know, extinct butter expression seems to have been used
to refer to two women dancing together, or kissing each other.
Bread to bread was used in the same way.
The last butter expression is something you don't want to be, a Butterfingers.
To call someone butterfingers means they often drop things they are holding or carrying as
if their fingers are greasy and objects just slip right out of their hands.
We often think of this as a modern expression, but it has actually been around since the
1800s, where it was at first exclusive to cricket and baseball (at least as far as we
know).
Charles Dickens used the term butterfingers to describe a clumsy cricket player in The
Pickwick Papers in 1837.
Do you know of any other butter expressions I didn't cover in this video?
Let me know in the comments.