10 ms·
Why has "smooth as butter" become such an overly used phrase in the tech world? Listening to the last Apple product release I must have heard the word butter a
by Osiris 9y ago
Why has "smooth as butter" become such an overly used phrase in the tech world? Listening to the last Apple product release I must have heard the word butter a few dozen times.
I don't know about anyone else but this phrase is really starting to annoy me. It's overly used, and the word "butter" in my mind is closer to "greasy", like "don't touch it with your finger because it'll get slimy and you'll have to wash your hands". Can't you just say "smooth" or "without any perceptible lag"?
EDIT: Seriously, this doesn't bug anyone else?
- rthille 9y ago"smooth as a Quantum stabilized atom mirror" just doesn't have the same ring to it...
- talyian 9y agoIf it makes you feel any better, silk is still the preferred standard for smoothness, and even baby bottoms are slightly more smooth than butter: https://trends.google.la/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=smooth%20as%20butter,smooth%20as%20silk https://trends.google.la/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=s... https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=smooth+as+butter%2Csmooth+as+a+baby%2C+smooth+as+silk&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1990&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Csmooth%20as%20butter%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bsmooth%20as%20butter%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSmooth%20as%20butter%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Csmooth%20as%20a%20baby%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bsmooth%20as%20a%20baby%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSmooth%20as%20a%20baby%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Csmooth%20as%20silk%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bsmooth%20as%20silk%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSmooth%20as%20silk%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSmooth%20as%20Silk%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=smooth+as+butt...
- artursapek 9y agobutter is known to generally render at >=60fps
- hbosch 9y ago"Smooth as butter", "smoother than butter", "butter smooth", et al is a common western phrase. It's as old or older than the King James Bible itself (Psalms 55:21 if you're curious). It's a quintessential English idiom.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- exhilaration 9y agoThank you, that's fascinating! Psalm 55:21 King James Version (KJV) 21. The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.
- cat199 9y agoWhile this is true idomatically, there was also a 'Project Butter' designed to make Android 'Buttery Smooth' a few years back - I think the high level of application of this idiom to video rendering specifically took hold at that point..
- macintux 9y agoWell, the username of the complainant is "Osiris", so the phrase might still be new for him.
- wnevets 9y agothe top two comments use that term, odd.
- seattle_spring 9y agoObvious shills of Big Butter.
- spraak 9y agoSorry for the downvotes, it bothers me too