Calling A Spade A Spade

I linked my last post on Ted Kennedy in a thread at KevinMD's and was rewarded with a few indignant visitors from Cape Cod. I think/hope I acquitted myself well against all of the standard bait and switch tactics (comes from years of combat training here).

That got one of my regulars fired up. From an e-mail exchange:

You know the statue of the Confederate soldier in front of the old Randolph County Courthouse? (Why yes, I do. It's the one that faces "defiantly South" . . . honoring Asheboro's long proud tradition of turning your back on enemies . . . instead of having the courage to look them in the eye.)

My dad used to say that every time an honest man walked by, the statue would fire his gun.

Don't know about you, but I'm still waiting to see that.

Yep. Me too.

I'll never understand Yankees, and I'm starting to have a hard time figuring us out.

Honestly, we need to call Liberalism what it it really is . . . Elitism.

Yep. Calling a spade a spade.

Author's note: The title of the post is on purpose. I was recently informed that the phrase is "racist" (as in "black as the Ace of Spades"). I was honestly dumbfounded. That usage had NEVER occurred to me.

In linguistic truth, the phrase has Greek/ancient origins (depending on who you ask, dating back to between 400 and 200BC). It was introduced into English by Nicholas Udall (in the mid-1500's) translating a Latin text by Erasmus: "I have learned to call wickedness by its own terms: A fig is a fig and a spade a spade."

Spades were shovels.

Of course, I often feel like the Ted Kennedys and Barack Obamas of this world are hitting me over the head with one.