From: Nikos Sarantakos <sarant@innet.lu> Newsgroups: sci.classics,alt.quotations Subject: Re: call a spade a spade Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 23:31:03 -0700 To: Mark Israel <misrael@scripps.edu>Mark Israel wrote: >
> 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
Neither the FAQ is wrong, nor Bartlett -or again, both of them are partly wrong. The Greek phrase was: "to call a fig a fig, a kneading-trough a kneading-trough" For instance, Lucian says that a historian has to be frank and truthful, "ta syka syka, te:n skaphe:n de skaphe:n onomasein". Gk. syko is fig, Gk. skaphe: is kneading-trough. Note that with e: I am trying to render Gk. eta, H.
This is a very interesting phrase. It has not changed a bit across the milleniums and it is used very often in Modern Greek. There has been a slight shift in meaning through the centuries: originally the phrase was used equally often with a pejorative connotation (i.e. to denote a rude person who speaks his mind tactlessly), it now has exclusively positive meaning.
What is the origin of the phrase? Nothing sure has been suggested, but my personal opinion is that both the fig and the kneeding-trough are sexual symbols, hence one who calls a fig a fig, etc. was one who talked too indiscreetly about such things. Later, this was forgotten so the phrase took a positive meaning. But this is just a conjecture and anyway I do not have with me my reference sources.
Best regards, Nikos Sarantakos Luxembourg
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