Today we're going to check out the origins of some common idioms, let's start with buttering up. Buttering up is quite literal in that Hindu tradition called for throwing butter at statues of Hindu deities hoping to be rewarded with a good harvest. Pardon my French evolved from "beg pardon" which was used for using French words in the 1800s as French was not widely spoken and the English were still miffed over the Napoleonic Wars. By the mid 1800s the phrase had changed to mean pardon my swear words and eventually morphed into meaning the speaker was only pretending to be sorry for what they had said. Now if you'll pardon my French I have some buttering up to do.
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