To "
call a spade a spade" is to speak honestly and directly about a topic, specifically topics that others may avoid speaking about due to their sensitivity or embarrassing nature.
Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1913) defines it as
“ To be outspoken, blunt, even to the point of rudeness; to call things by their proper names without any "beating about the bush". ” Its ultimate source is
Plutarch's
Apophthegmata Laconica (178B) which has
την σκαφην σκαφην λεγοντας (
ten skafen skafen legontas).
σκαφη (
skafe) means "
basin,
trough", but
Erasmus mis-translated it (as if from σπάθη
spáthe) as
ligo "
shovel" in his
Apophthegmatum opus.
Lucian De Hist. Conscr. (41) has
τα συκα συκα, την σκαφην δε σκαφην ονομασων (
ta suka suka, ten skafen de skafen onomason) "calling a fig a fig, and a trough a trough".
The phrase was introduced to English in 1542 in
Nicolas Udall's translation of Erasmus,
Apophthegmes, that is to saie, prompte saiynges. First gathered by Erasmus:
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 then a spade. It is evident that the word
spade refers to the instrument used to move earth, a very common tool. The same word was used in England and in
Holland, Erasmus' country of origin.
