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Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 39. The word origin today
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or the term today the origin is to butter someone up. Okay. Good. Let's
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take a look at the note here. If someone butters up another person, he or she
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praises someone a lot in order to gain his or her favor. Okay or is sometimes
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used before delivering bad news or asking for favors. So if you're buttering
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someone up you're trying to make them feel better. You're getting them ready for
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something, usually some bad news , asking for a favor or something like that. Okay.
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Let's continue. Most sources claim the origin of this phrase came from an old
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ancient Indian custom of tossing like throwing or tossing balls of ghee. I guess
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that's how you pronounce it, which is clarified butter. Okay. What's clarified
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butter ? We have that down here. Clarified butter has been made clear by heating. So
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they heated it up to make it clearer and guess they're throwing that.. Okay
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clarified butter at particular gods in order to gain their favor. Even though I
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don't know we sometimes think this is strange. Wouldn't , wouldn't that make the
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gods angry if you throwing butter on them ? Or maybe they like it. Maybe they
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think it's nice and shiny. I don't know. By buttering up the statues it was hoped
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they would have a good you know, have good harvests and peace. Peace you know not
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war. Okay. Good. So let's continue. Let's look at a couple of examples. The way we
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may hear it still used today. Every time you try to butter me up, it means you are
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going to ask me for a loan. Maybe this person already knows. Like don't. Don't
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try to butter me up. I'm not doing that you know that's where we might hear it
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or the second one you had better do a lot of buttering up if you plan on
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asking him for that favor. So he's not going to give that favor very easily. So you
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better butter him up really well. Okay, Anyway I hope you got it. I hope
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it's clear. I hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.