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Spade?

Does "spade" in this context refer to the type of shovel, or the old derogatory term for a person of African heritage?
143.182.124.2 17:44, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The expression to call a spade a spade is thousands of years old and etymologically has nothing whatsoever to do with any racial sentiment. The exact origin is uncertain; the ancint Greek playwright Menander, in a fragment, said "I call a fig a fig, a spade a spade," but Lucian attributes the phrase to Aristophanes. Later, Plutarch notes that "The Macedonians are a rude and clownish people who call a spade a spade." It first appeared in English in the sixteenth century, and the racial reference from the colour of the suit of playing cards, spades, dates from 20th century. I am currently looking for links etc to make a full edit over the weekend. Till then remember if there are two possible meanings for something and one makes you unhappy then the other was the intended meaning.
-- Drappel 18:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I had always heard this phrase applied to the Latin historian Tacitus whose obsession with writing in an "elevated" style led him to avoid such commonplace words as, well, "shovel" or "spade". (I remember my amusement when I encountered that very passage in his writings.) He should be mentioned in this article.
-- llywrch (talk) 15:58, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's in Annals 1.65 that Tacitus famously refers to "implements for digging earth and cutting turf" because he can't bring himself to use such an unrefined word as "spades". Wish I could find a way of working it into the article … Vilĉjo (talk) 22:44, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

   Abt T & by T.
--Jerzy•t 00:16, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

   Well, Drappel, -- and likewise Llywrch, -- absence of evidence is often not evidence of absence. So are you saying that you checked OED and not even written use of "... black as the ace of spades" by 1900 has been found? Or just that "spade" as a racial designation has that OED status?
   IMO, it is implausible that the single-word term is more that 10 or 20 years newer than the phrase, yet the delay between oral and print use might be a lot longer for the term than the phrase. Consider the likelihood that use of a term of abuse -- esp'ly if it does it'sits work primarily in the in form of trivialization, (i.e. treating an individual --( of a specific group, in this case) -- as no more worthy of attention than a cheap entertainment device is --) is far less likely to find its way into print quickly than is a toothsome - and more generally applicable - simile that it derives from.
--Jerzy•t 00:16 &02:51, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Although it seems clear from the etymology that it relates to a shovel, the article says this is 'self evident' or 'evident' (sorry, being lazy)... I always thought that it was from the suit in card games before this. So it is not self-evident, or easily assumed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.235.253 (talk) 11:08, 29 September 2013‎
NJX— Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.235.253 (talk) 11:08, 29 September 2013‎

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--CopyToWiktionaryBot 02:29, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Plutarch, in referring to the Macedonians as a very brutish people, said that he had to "call a trough a trough." Erasmus later mis-translated the word "trough" to mean shovel or spade. But it begs the question, what did the original ("to call a trough a trough") mean? In many ancient cities they basically had an open sewer system -- a "trough" which ran next to the street and which carried the feces and garbage, hopefully, downhill. So, it is a reasonable inference that he was saying, "If the Macedonians are indeed crap-filled sewers, they should be called that."

I love wikipedia

I was sure that there were racist undertones here - but I would have dated both this phrase and the slur as a couple of hundred years old, two times too long for the slur and an order of magnitude off for the phrase. Great to be able to check and cross one thing off the list of things to worry about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.106.175.189 (talk) 01:30, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

You sound like a idiot. First to think that wikipedia is a legitiment source for imformation but also not to be aware that this IS meant as a racial slur. Like many racial and ethnic slurs they didn't start off that way. If you think it's not walk up to a black person on the street and say that to their face. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.117.82.35 (talk) 22:34, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

You sound like you may not have seen WP:NICE. Let's be direct but gentle. Text struck. Gregkaye ✍♪ 08:10, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

The only person who can say how a phrase is "meant" is the person who said it. Your suggestion that it is only meant as a slur is ridiculous, as is your "proof" that some hypothetical person would be offended by it. Many people have been upset at the use of word "niggardly", assuming it had at its root a racial slur, which it doesn't. To avoid a word or phrase purely because some people have misunderstood its meaning is ridiculous.

Good grief, I've never heard any suggestion that the phrase had (or was ever interpreted by anyone as having) racist connotations, before reading it here. I think that must be a particularly U.S. thing. Vilĉjo (talk) 22:49, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Racial Connection Needs Documentation

"...n contemporary society the idiom is often avoided due to its allusion to the modern racial slur" appears to be completely anecdotal. This needs a citation, or it needs to be removed.
--AdamRoach (talk) 20:20, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

footnoted my citation, this is my first wikipedia edit, so i hope the formatting is acceptable
--Unmailed letter (talk) 02:37, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the cite. I'm tidying up grammar a bit, but the assertion looks sound.
--AdamRoach (talk) 03:22, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

looks good
--Unmailed letter (talk) 00:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

This is not good documentation. There are many more sources that the racial connection is a misunderstanding, yet users want to perpetuate this myth in wikipedia. Why? The first comment, that it is anecdotal, is the correct one. I realize this is 5 years old now, but it should change. How about this book? chapter 6, from OUP? Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends By David Wilton How about a random house blog from 1997? http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/?date=19970115
HoneyBooBew (talk) 16:17, 20 November 2013 (UTC)HoneyBooBew

UmL made a pair of edits, diligently creating a ref.
--Jerzy•t 06:17, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

this phrase being avoided out of political correctness is a hilarious bit of real life irony. The only thing lacking would be online filters summarily replacing spade, as in the excellent example of misfiring prudery that gave us "Tyson Homosexual" :)
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Dbachmann (talk • contribs) 10:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

   DB is citing a then-recent article by a WashPost professional blogger. It's about a group hoping to "reclaim" the word "gay", from use by people who'd prefer avoiding labeling an affectional choice with a clinically derived 4-syllable Greek-derived word: they search-and-replace the news they republish for "gay" or "Gay", without effective human oversight.
   I hasten to say that i hope it is neither WP nor Wikt content that supports DB's bizarre use

of "political correctness" to describe one school of "call it a spade" etymology, and
of "prudery" to describe homophobia so extremely paranoid as to include (subconscious?) belief that "gay" is no longer ever used to mean "cheerful" -- nor as a surname.

And i'm just sad (surely we can't blame wikis) that anyone sees reason to consider either the article discussion or the news item as relevant to the other.
--Jerzy•t 06:17, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Pop Culture references?

Do we have any pop culture references to the use of the phrase? I think that would help. I can think of one off the top of my head; The Band's song 4% Pantomine.

Oh, Belfast Cowboy,
Lay your cards on the grade
Oh, Belfast Cowboy,
Can you call a Spade a Spade

--63.139.174.185 (talk) 05:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know that we need such a section. But Act 2 of The Importance of Being Earnest has the following exchange:

Cecily: When I see a spade I call it a spade.

Gwendolen: I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade.

NoJoy (talk) 18:53, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

   Agreed, but here's another off topic jest, from low pop culture, that i think of every time i hear the expression:

   Mother Superior is approached by a young nun who is concerned about the vile language drifting in from the adjacent construction site. MS tells her that a life of contemplation is different from one of hand labor, and it's not surprising that the workers tend to call a spade a spade. Nun replies, "Yes, Mother Superior, but why do they have to call it a fucking shovel?"
   Biddi-bang, biddi-boom.

--Jerzy•t 23:07, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

The request to rename this article to Call a spade a spade has been carried out. If the page title has consensus, be sure to close this discussion using {{subst:RM top|'''page moved'''.}} and {{subst:RM bottom}} and remove the {{Requested move/dated|…}} tag, or replace it with the {{subst:Requested move/end|…}} tag.

To call a spade a spade → Call a spade a spade – Why don't we just "Call a spade a spade" and put the expression "Call a spade a spade" into the namespace "Call a spade a spade". Apologies for the rhetoric. It couldn't be helped.
See also: Break a leg, Damning with faint praise, Eating your own dog food, Flogging a dead horse, Get a life (idiom), Jump the gun, Kick the bucket, Kill or be killed, Live and Let Live, Reinventing the wheel, Speak of the devil, Taking the piss, Tilting at windmills, Toe the line and, maybe relevantly, Shut up.
Category:English idioms.
Gregkaye (talk) 08:57, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support per conciseness and consistency. 10 points to the nominator. Red Slash 18:43, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support per nom -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 04:17, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
• Just a thought – how about "Calling a spade a spade"? —BarrelProof (talk) 19:55, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
• My opinion is that the page should be moved but that the title should be Calling a spade a spade—currently a redirect to this article—in accordance with WP:NOUN. (Some, but not all, of the examples cited by the nom that are in verb form could also do with a move to gerund form.) Deor (talk) 12:23, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
• @BarrelProof:, @Deor:, Re: ..ing I just did a couple of searches on view of: commonname:

"call a spade a spade" gets "About 10,200,000 results"

"calling a spade a spade" gets "About 1,860,000 results"

I think that's about 6:1.

also i think it might be good for inter user communication to have the phrase "call a spade a spade" readily available. Gregkaye (talk) 15:24, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

The article is not about the act of calling a spade a spade; it is about the term most commonly rendered "call a spade a spade". The gerund form is not warranted. —  AjaxSmack  03:10, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support as proposed. The title should reflect the most common usage, just like break a leg and kick the bucket do. Some of the current "-ing" titles are likely more commonly used at that title than at a non-"-ing" form (e.g. Tilting at windmills gets ten times the Google hits of Tilt at windmills). bd2412 T 19:01, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

• Transwikied to Wiktionary
• Requested moves