Today we're going to look at idioms and how some of them came about, starting with Butter Someone Up. This one means to praise someone with a motive in mind and it can be traced to an Ancient Indian Custom of throwing balls of ghee (Indian butter) at statues of the gods to gain their favor. Are You Pulling My Leg? This one's origin looks at two unpleasant options so how it got to mean joking with someone is mysterious at best. Both come from Victorian London, the first is that robbers would pull on people's legs to trip them then rob them when they fell, the second explanation isn't clear to me but I'm guessing it depended on how the accused was being executed as the executioner would hold onto the criminals leg to grant a quicker death...so drawing and quartering?
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