"Call a spade a spade" is a figurative expression. It refers to calling something "as it is"[1]—that is, by its right or proper name, without "beating about the bush", but rather speaking truthfully, frankly, and directly about a topic, even to the point of bluntness or rudeness, and even if the subject is considered coarse, impolite, or unpleasant.
"Call a spade a spade" or "call a spade a shovel" are both forms of the figurative expression which state that the speaker should call, or has called, a noun by its most suitable name without any reservation to the strained formalities that may result.[1][2][3] The implication is telling the truth regarding the nature of the thing in question,[4] speaking frankly and directly about it,[2][3] even if it is considered coarse, impolite, or unpleasant.[4][2][3]Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable defines it in 1913 as being "outspoken, blunt, even to the point of rudeness", adding that it implies calling "things by their proper names without any 'beating about the bush'".[5]
Robert Burton used the idiom in his The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) to describe his ostensibly plain writing style, claiming, "I call a spade a spade" (1.17.23).[7]: 2 n.3 The phrase also appeared in Joseph Devlin's book How to Speak and Write Correctly (1910) to satirize speakers who chose their words to show superiority: "For instance, you may not want to call a spade a spade. You may prefer to call it a spatulous device for abrading the surface of the soil. Better, however, to stick to the old familiar, simple name that your grandfather called it."[8] Oscar Wilde uses the phrase in his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), when the character Lord Henry Wotton remarks: "It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for."[9] Wilde uses it again in The Importance of Being Earnest (1895).[10] Other authors who have used it in their works include Charles Dickens,[11] Ralph Waldo Emerson,[12]Robert Browning,[13] Jonathan Swift,[14] and W. Somerset Maugham.[15]
The equivalent expression in Spanish-speaking countries is "a llamar al pan pan, y al vino vino", which translates as "to call the bread bread, and to call the wine wine". Italian has a similar expression to the Spanish "dire pane al pane e vino al vino", literally "to say bread to the bread and wine to the wine".[17] The equivalent in French-speaking countries is "appeler un chat, un chat", which translates as "to call a cat a cat".[18]InPortuguese-speaking countries, the equivalent is "chamar os bois pelos nomes",[19] literally, "to call oxen by their names" (a double-entendre; an "ox" can also refer to a cornuted man, a cuckold[20]).
The ultimate source of this idiom is a phrase in Plutarch's Apophthegmata Laconica: 'τὴν σκάφην σκάφην λέγοντας (tēn skaphēn skaphēn legontas).[21]The word σκαφη (skaphe) means "basin, or trough."[22]LucianDe Hist. Conscr. (41) has τὰ σύκα σύκα, τὴν σκάφην δὲ σκάφην ὀνομάσων (ta suka suka, tēn skaphēn de skaphēn onomasōn),[23] "calling a fig a fig, and a trough a trough".
Erasmus translated Plutarch's σκαφην (skaphe), as if from σπάθη (spáthe),asligo "shovel" in his Apophthegmatum opus. Lakshmi Gandhi speculates that the introduction of the word "shovel" may have been a conscious, dramatic choice rather than a mistranslation.[15]
The phrase was introduced to English in 1542 in Nicolas Udall's translation of Erasmus' work, Apophthegmes, that is to saie, prompte saiynges. First gathered by Erasmus:[15]
Philippus aunswered, that the Macedonians wer feloes of no fyne witte in their termes but altogether grosse, clubbyshe, and rusticall, as they whiche had not the witte to calle a spade by any other name than a spade.
In the expression, the word spade refers to the instrument used to move earth, a very common tool.[15] The same word was used in England, Scandinavia, and in the Netherlands,[24] Erasmus' country of origin.[25]
^ abcCambridge University Press (2006). "Spade; To call a spade a spade". Cambridge Idioms Dictionary (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN3125335973. Retrieved 29 Oct 2015.
^ abBrewer, Ebenezer Cobham (1913). "Spade; To call a spade a spade". Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. New York, NY: Harper & Brothers. p. 853. Retrieved 29 Oct 2015.
^Wilton, Dave (9 Apr 2006). "call a spade a spade". Word Origins. Retrieved 1 Jun 2016. We did not think it hypocritical to draw over our vagaries the curtain of a decent silence. The spade was not invariably called a bloody shovel.
^Swift, Jonathan (1801). "Polite Conversation: Dialogue III". In Thomas Sheridan; John Nichols (eds.). The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume VIII. London: Nichols & Son. p. 365. Retrieved 17 Apr 2021.
^τῶν δὲ περὶ Λασθένην τὸν Ὀλύνθιον ἐγκαλούντων καὶ ἀγανακτούντων, ὅτι προδότας αὐτοὺς ἔνιοι τῶν περὶ τὸν Φίλιππον ἀποκαλοῦσι, σκαιοὺς ἔφη φύσει καὶ ἀγροίκους εἶναι Μακεδόνας καὶ τὴν σκάφην σκάφην λέγοντας., "When the men associated with Lasthenes, the Olynthian, complained with indignation because some of Philip's associates called them traitors, he said that the Macedonians are by nature a rough and rustic people who call a spade a spade.", Plutarch, Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata, 26.15
