January 15, 1997

call a spade a spade

What is the origin of the expression "call a spade a spade"? Is this a politically correct expression?

Let's get two things straight here: first, 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 second is that in spite of this, some people think it is a racial statement, and therefore it should be treated with some caution.

To call a spade a spade, which means, ironically for this discussion, 'to speak plainly and bluntly; to speak without euphemisms', is first found in Ancient Greece. The exact origin is uncertain; the 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 is worth noting that the Greek word translated as "spade" seems actually to mean something like "bowl" or "trough"; the "spade" may be based on a Renaissance mistranslation. In this case the original expression was "to call a bowl a bowl," and thus the "spade" expression is "only" 500, rather than 2,500, years old.)

After it first appeared in English in the sixteenth century, the saying became quite common, and was used in various forms and allusions. My favorite English example:

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

Gwendolen: I am glad to say I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.

--Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

Spade meaning 'a black person' is far more recent; it is first found in the early twentieth century. It derives from the black color of the suit of spades in a deck of playing cards.

Clearly our expression to call a spade a spade was very well established long before the word spade had any racial sense. However, today the word does have a racial sense. If the expression is assumed to be offensive, it should be used with caution even if there's no real basis for the assumption. This is not an unusual event. The word bloody, for example, does not derive from a profane oath such as "by our lady," but that's what people thought, and the word was considered quite offensive. The incorrect etymological assumption did not change the word's offensiveness. Few people today would object to call a spade a spade, but some people might, and one should at the very least be aware of that.