To Call a Spade a Spade

Todd E Van Hoosear (vanhoose@lalaland.cl.msu.edu)
Sun, 30 Jun 1996 14:07:08 -0400 (EDT) 



From: misrael@scripps.edu (Mark Israel)
Newsgroups: sci.classics,alt.quotations
Subject: call a spade a spade
Date: 30 May 1996 20:28:10 GMT


In my FAQ for all alt.usage.english I have the following:


# "to call a spade a spade"
# -------------------------
#
#    The ancient Greeks said "to call a kneading-trough a kneading-
# trough".  This is first recorded in Aristophanes' play _The Clouds_
# (423 B.C.), and also shows up in Plutarch's _Apophthegms_.
#
#    In the Renaissance, Erasmus confused Plutarch's "kneading-trough"
# (_skape:_) with the Greek word for "digging tool" (_skapeion_), and
# rendered it in Latin as _ligo_.  Thence it was translated into
# English in 1542 by Nicholas Udall in his translation of Erasmus's
# version as "to call a spade [...] a spade".


It has been brought to my attention that Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
has, under Menander:


# I call a fig a fig, a spade a spade.
#				-- Unidentified Fragment 545
#
# Also attributed to Aristophanes by LUCIAN, _De Conscribend. Hist._, 41.
#
# The Macedonians are a rude and clownish people that call a spade
# a spade. -- PLUTARCH, _Apotheghms, Philip of Macedon_


Could someone with access to the Greek please tell me which Greek
word was used?  Is Bartlett's wrong, or is my FAQ wrong?



--
misrael@scripps.edu			Mark Israel



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