What do you think if someone you haven’t met is described in this way? Other adjectives may include “honest”, “straight up”, “takes no bullshit” etc. It can refer to someone who has a fairly straight approach to life and human interactions but still in a way that is positive , but it can also refer to someone who is basically just an arsehole. So if this is the description you get of someone that you are about to meet, what are you expecting? An arsehole who thinks that “honesty” is a valid excuse for being cruel, or someone who just avoids ambiguity in their dealings with people. Is it a good or bad trait? Would you like it if it was said of you?
Edit: I realize the title phrase can be perceived as a racial slur, ignore that aspect of it please, for this discussion the description is just of someone who calls something what it is.
Yes. It simultaneously communicates that the person being described “calls 'em like he sees 'em” without regard for the feelings of others, and that the person describing him admires that trait.
ETA whether or not that is a good or bad trait depends entirely on the context.
I would consider being honest, succinct, being a realist, as all positive traits.
However, I would never describe such a person as “not afraid to call a spade a spade” as that carries connotations of rudeness / boorishness.
And yeah I agree it somewhat reflects badly even on the person using the expression. It implies perhaps they don’t see the distinction between being honest and being rude.
Impossible to say without context, how is it being said? to what situation is it referring?
The phrase in and of itself is neutral, but then I grew up amongst people of Yorkshire heritage to whom the possibility of behaving in any other way but “spade is a spade”-ishness is anathema (see…I’m not from Yorkshire myself and I used a flowery term instead)
Such people have gone from once being salt-of-the-earth cheeky characters who had some interesting points of view, to now primarily racist misogynist morons who should be avoided at all costs.
Speaking of the famed Yorkshire bluntness, it reminds me of the other saying; “I say what I like and I like what I say”. Which to me, both hint of a soupçon of tactlessness.
By the way, while checking the number of s’s in tactlessness, “calling a spade a spade” appeared in a list of synonyms.
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.”
Gwendolen: “I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.”
Speaking “plainly” connotes something different to my ear. It means someone who speaks succinctly, in an easy to comprehend manner. You can speak in plain language and still lie your ass off.
If someone I had never met was being introduced as someone not afraid to call a spade a spade and it was in a casual, non-work-related context, I’d feel some apprehension about meeting this person. Because it suggests I’m about to meet someone with a big disagreeable personality. But if my boss tells me to go ask So-and-So’opinion about something work-related because the boss knows this person is not afraid to call a spade a spade, then no red flags get thrown up.
In my mind, anyone who self identifies as not afraid to, “call a spade a spade!”, very likely not only lacks both nuance and tact, but isn’t smart enough to realize that’s NOT something to boast about!
I associate it, as others up thread, with Yorkshire folk’s self-admiration for bluntness. Something my father calls ‘just an excuse for being bloody rude’.
I don’t disagree with you. I was really just noting the irony of someone self-describing themselves as blunt or succinct (or whatever your preference) but using a figurative expression to do so.
I am close to 70 years old and haven’t heard that term actually used very many times. More commonly I would hear something like " He tells it like it is". Or " He calls it like he sees it". I don’t see those terms as negative.
FWIW, Wiki sez: The phrase predates the use of the word “spade” as an ethnic slur against African Americans, which was not recorded until 1928; however, in contemporary U.S. society, the idiom is often avoided due to potential confusion with the slur.
There were construction workers doing major renovations at the convent. One of the nuns went to the Mother Superior and exclaimed “Sister, these men should not be speaking so disrespectfully in this sacred place! The language they use is just… inappropriate!”
She replied “My dear, these are men of the earth, you can’t read too much into what they say. They are the type to call a sapde a spade, as it were.”
“But he didn’t call it a spade, he called it a ‘fucking shovel’!”
It isn’t a phrase you hear a lot but in my experience it is generally said with some sense of admiration. It means that the subject is forthright and not going to sugar coat their opinions.
