Firewater Friday - Let's call a spade a spade

To call a spade a spade is a way to describe something as itreally is.

These days it seems like everything and everybody is calleda racist for any little old thing.   I guess it’s simply the way I think but itnever occurred to me that this phrase . . . ‘call a spade a spade’ . . . wouldbe considered racially derogatory.  Andthe fact is . . . it’s NOT.  Or, at least it wasn’t . . .

 

The expression is thousands of years old.  Back when spades were implements to dig theearth and not the symbol on a deck of cards or . . . whatever else.

The original saying derives from the ancient Greek idiom ‘tasyka syka, te:n

skaphe:n de skaphe:n onomasein’  which translates "to call a fig a fig, atrough a

trough".    

Far from being an ethic slur, its thought that thisexpression was initially a sexual reference . . . a fig and trough beingsymbolic for . . . well, I don’t think I need to paint you a picture.

Anyhoo . . .

Interestingly, sometime during the Renaissance, ‘trough’ gotmistranslated as ‘spade’.    It’s not surprising,considering the ancient Greek for these words are fairly similar . . . skaphe =trough / skapheion = digging tool.

"Spade" in the sense of "negro" is notrecorded until 1928 and comes from the color of the playing card symbol, viathe phrase ‘black as the ace of spades’.

 

Frankly, I’m sick of tippy-toeing around and tired of politicalcorrectness. I think people are way too overly sensitive.  Buck up and get a stiff upper lip . . . everylittle ol’ thing is not an attack onsome other thing.  It’s just not.  Sometimes a spade is just that . . . a spade.

That is all . . . moving on . . . 

Sweet Cream Soda


2 Shots Pinnacle Cake
2 Shots  Pinnacle Whipped
8 oz. Club Soda


Mix in a glass filled with ice and garnish with a cherry.