“A shiny metal spade with a wooden handle standing upright on bright green grass, its flat blade reflecting light.”

Sometimes my best source of inspiration comes from you — my loyal readers and followers. Believe me when I say I read every comment and appreciate the time and thought you put into them. So when Grooves or Grammar commented on my post Say What? A Stroll Through American Slang, I paid attention.

Grooves wrote:

“I sometimes wonder about ‘let’s call a spade a spade’. I think the meaning is clear, but why a spade, rather than anything else? The phrase would have been just as clear with pretty much any other item. Very useful phrase, though, especially when I’m having conversations with students who are trying to come up with increasingly unlikely excuses for homework not being done…”

And I thought, Wow — that’s a great expression and I’d totally forgotten it. So I did a little digging (pun intended), and here’s what I discovered.

This may sound as American as apple pie these days, but it actually goes all the way back to ancient Greece. The earliest version appears in classical Greek writings. Plutarch used a phrase meaning “call a fig a fig and a trough a trough,” which was all about speaking plainly.

Centuries later, the scholar Erasmus translated that Greek phrase into Latin — but he made a mistake. He swapped the Greek word for “trough” with a similar‑sounding word meaning “spade.” That mistranslation stuck.

Then in 1542, Nicholas Udall, an English (not American!) playwright, schoolmaster, and scholar, translated Erasmus’s Latin into English — and that’s how the phrase entered English exactly as we know it today. It could’ve been almost any object, but thanks to a translation quirk, we all ended up with spades that have nothing to do with gardening.

So Keep those cards and letters coming (Dean Martin)

Keep those comments coming (or as the old saying goes, those “cards and letters”). I love when they make me think — or make me “dig” for answers.

🎄 A Word (or Phrase) of Caution

In this season of joy and celebration, it feels right to pause and think about the words we toss around. Language is powerful — sometimes more than we realize. A few everyday expressions carry histories that aren’t as harmless as they sound.

🥤 “Drink the Kool-Aid”

We’ve all heard it: “They really drank the Kool-Aid.” Today it’s shorthand for blind loyalty or swallowing rhetoric without question. But the phrase traces back to the Jonestown tragedy in 1978, when over 900 members of the Peoples Temple died after drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. That’s a heartbreaking origin — not exactly the stuff of punchlines or pep-rally slogans.

🚤 “Sold Down the River”

This one sounds almost adventurous, but its roots are devastating. The phrase comes from enslaved people being literally sold down the Mississippi River to harsher conditions on Southern plantations. What we now use to mean “betrayed” began with broken families and lives under slavery.

👴 “Grandfather Clause”

We often use this to mean a friendly exception — like when someone gets to keep an old perk after rules change. But in the late 1800s, “grandfather clauses” were legal tricks designed to block emancipated Black Americans from voting. What sounds casual today was once a tool of exclusion.

🥜 “Peanut Gallery”

It sounds playful, right? But the “peanut gallery” was the cheap seats in theaters, where patrons threw peanuts at performers. Over time, it became shorthand for hecklers or unwanted commentary — and carried undertones of class and racial exclusion. (Sorry, Howdy Doody, but that catchphrase has baggage!)

✨ Wrapping It Up

Like me, you’ve probably used these phrases without thinking twice. That’s the point — we don’t always know the stories behind our words. But once we do, it’s worth pausing before we repeat them. Some sayings aren’t as harmless as they seem, and choosing better words is one small way to spread kindness.

I’d love to hear what you think: have you ever caught yourself using a phrase with a surprising backstory? Can you think of other expressions we toss around that might deserve a second look? Share your thoughts — let’s keep the conversation going.