Ron Boat sees a spade as a spade

by | Jan 27, 2017 | 2017 - Articles, Ron's Articles

Truth – it’s such a fleeting thing when people choose to ignore, deny or twist it. And yet… truth, in its “truest” form, is fact.  It’s been defined as:

  1. The quality or state of being true.
  2. That which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.
  3. A fact or belief that is accepted as true.

For many of us, speaking the truth, promoting the truth, living the truth day to day is a part of life, if not a passion. And certainly, it has its benefits.

In the world of politics, telling the truth – calling it what “it” is – is paramount to the act of communicating correctly to those you wish to lead. Unless of course you choose to lie deliberately for the purpose to mislead, manipulate, deceive or confuse for personal gain.

And when you’re caught bypassing the truth, skimming over it like a pothole in a better path, people might call you out on it. Calling a spade a spade, as it were, to make it known “your truth” is not reality, not based on fact.

Whoops… was I racist there? Did I interject a pejorative indented to bespeak hate and degradation for a particular group? NO, I think not. Again, the truth of the phrase has its meaning far before the modern implications assigned by those who would choose and promote it as a venomous means of bigotry, prejudice, and discrimination. And there’s a lesson to be learned in all this.

First, to “call a spade a spade” is a figurative expression. An idiom originating in the classical Greek of Plutarch’s Apophthegmata Laconica, (sometime before 120 A.D.) and was introduced into the English language in 1542 in Nicolas Udall’s translation of the Apophthegmes, where Erasmus, the renowned humanist and classical scholar, had seemingly replaced Plutarch’s images of “trough” and “fig” with the more familiar “spade.”

If you read even early American writing, you see that people spoke in relative simple terms, easy to understand ideas so as NOT to be misunderstood. So, when saying a rock “is” a rock, a tree “is” a tree, a spade “is” a spade, then those are facts and not to be disputed; as used by Oscar Wilde in “The Importance of Being Earnest”, in 1895:

CECILY:

“Do you suggest, Miss Fairfax, that I entrapped Ernest into an engagement? How dare you? This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade.”

And Gwendolen’s response to Cecily could, or might, certainly be reinterpreted in our “modern society”

GWENDOLEN:

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

Languages are always changing, adapting to their time and place and yet, socially changing the meaning of a word or phrase can have unintended (or intended), alarming and deleterious consequences. It was in the early 20th century that a more racial tone was ascribed to this particular phrase.

Why bring up this history lesson? Because in today’s political arena, the lions have been having the masses of citizenry for lunch with their verbal banter. Garnering support from those with no individual intellect to understand “truth”, no desire to seek wisdom or capacity to realize they are sheep on the flower laden path to their own destruction. Promoting some to riot, destroy, even kill. Lemmings of the left.

Over the last eight years there were so many lies told by our “leaders” (to use the term very loosely) that “keeping your doctor or your plan” was in no way related to being a spade.  When the president said, there wasn’t “a hint of scandal”, there were no garden tools of honesty and reality in that statement.

And yet for eight long, misleading years, a lot of people either ignored or bought into the lies, the deceptions, the corruption of verbal abuse spewed on them, as long as it met their daily needs of rent checks, free this and that and personal mental security.

It’s incumbent on all of us to be aware, to listen and discern what is being told to us for our own good and stable futures. People are human and make mistakes, and even President Trump will falter and stumble as have all the great leaders but…. and this is a HUGE but…. there must be a realization and questioning – Was it a mistake or an attempt to present that mere rusty spade as a golden rod, or maybe a true warning of a tough pill to swallow for our own good. Is the misspoken truth meant to deceive, or accidental?

As participants in our society, we must take a more educated role in the management of our country by electing hard working, qualified and truthful leaders. We must vote on issues with all the facts on the table. And not being misled and distracted by all the chocolate covered or gold plated carrots of promise that are dangled every 2 or 4 years for our amusement and enjoyment.

Is a spade a spade? Usually. Because truth is truth, facts are facts as in the old adage, “You’re either pregnant or you’re not.” There’s no in-between when it comes to keeping your doctor or finding a scandal…. or realizing the true reality of your future.

In considering truth, I would leave you this admonition from Geoffrey Chaucer in “The Cook’s Tale”, 1390:

“But yet I pray thee be not wroth for game; A man may say full sooth [the truth] in game and play.“

Or Shakespeare later came closer to our contemporary version of the expression in “King Lear”, 1605:

“Many a true word hath been spoken in jest.”

Are we getting the truth? Are we really hearing and understanding the truth? Or is it wrapped in a joke or a lie? Could it be an “inconvenient truth?”

Discern carefully my friends, and be warned.

RB

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