"They call a spade a spade".

[Betty Boop x]

Does anyone know where the phrase - "they call a spade a spade" comes from.

I know what it means, as in, I know what context it's used in. i.e - "oh yeah, Jack says exactly what he means, he doesn't hold back how he feels and is really honest with people about what he thinks of them. He calls a spade a spade."

I've heard it used a lot recently by different people I know and was just wondering why the word spade was chosen and where it came from.

I'm just curious . . . .

x

[jeg1810]

Try this link

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=1997011 5

[Quizmonster]

The above link does not work (for me). Try this one here

[bondy]

Probably from cards but it may be racial ( I don't think ) so be careful!

[bondy]

or just maybe its a spade not a shovel.

[smudge]

Here's jegs1810's link, which should now work:

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19970115

[SteveD]

I can remember my father using the expression:

Call a spade "a spade" and not "a bl00dy shovel!".

(my inverted commas for clarity of meaning which is "refer to things as they really are").

[Gnisy]

A spade is another word to describe someone coloured. It used to have an element of racism in there somewhere so don't use it if you don't understand it. To use it to describe someone as being honest as in "he calls a spade a spade" is not quite accurate. It's more of a "he dares to call a spade a spade" kind-of-a-thing.

[Betty Boop x]

Thanx for all the replies. I had NO idea there was any element of racism in the saying (can't be the only one!!) and the information on the links have opened my eyes.

x

[marwel7]

In Woolworths they call a spade a digging spade.

[smudge]

At least you always know where you are with a person who calls a spade a spade.

[footyteacher]

To call a spade a spade is, like the terms "Blackleg" and "Blackguard", most definitely not racist in origin. It goes way, way back before the term "spade" was used as a racist term. I think it goes back as far as the Ancient Greeks, something like "to call a fig a fig; to call a spade a spade and to call a bowl a bowl", possibly in one of Aristophanes' plays, around 250-300BC.

I do know that Erasmus paraphrased the term: "I have learned to call wickedness what it is in its own terms: A fig is a fig and a spade is a spade."