3 Quizzes, Closing Date 30 November 2024
Quizzes & Puzzles2 mins ago
Anyone know where this comes from
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The full expression is fine words butter no parsnips (or sometimes soft words ... or fair words ...), meaning that words alone are useless, especially flattering phrases or fine promises, and you should judge people by what they do rather than by what they say.
Apart from that, there�s not a lot more that one can say apart from �origin unknown�. It�s a proverb, which is at least 400 years old: the first example given in the big Oxford English Dictionary is dated 1639: �Faire words butter noe parsnips�.
The link between butter and flattery is easy to understand. We have had the verb to butter up, to flatter someone lavishly, in the language at least since the early eighteenth century. It and the proverb share the image of fine words being liberally applied to smooth their subject and oil the process of persuasion.