Forum: ell.stackexchange.com
Tags: <phrase-meaning><poetry><idioms-in-context>
Title: Is "butter on toast" an idiom in English
Question: This is a stanza from Ruskin Bond's poem  If Mice Could Roar :   If tortoise could run And losses be won And bullies be buttered on toast   I can't understand the phrase  bullies be buttered on toast.  By the way, in another stanza of the same poem:   If pebbles could sing And bells never ring And teachers were lost in the  post ;   What is the meaning of  post  in this context?

Answers:
sents: text: I found an answer on brainly.in that describes it as: Usually a bully is arrogant and dominating.
text: The poet wishes that if a bully could become softer and more compatible with others, just as butter on toast.
text: There's no idiom "buttered on toast" and I'm a native American English speaker.
text: However, in the context of poetry there is often significant creative freedom in the words chosen and used.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/121193/Smith
score: 20
sents: text: There is an idiom "to butter someone up" to please someone, so that that person will do what you want them to do.
text: The metaphor is that putting butter on something makes it less dry and easier to eat.
text: This is extended, as butter on toast becomes warm and soft.
text: The poet is inventing a metaphor that suggests "if bullies could become soft and would do what we want them to do just by being nice to them".
text: "Lost in the post" when talking about a letter means it was sent but never arrived.
text: It is sometimes used an excuse: "
text: No I didn't do the task, I never received your instruction, the letter must have got lost in the post.
text: "
text: This figuratively means "teachers don't come and interrupt my play with their boring lessons".
text: Similarly "bells never ring" refers to the bell that is rung at the end of break time when the pupils have to return to the classroom.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/24231/James K
score: 7
sents: text: There is no idiom butter on toast , but there is the established phrase in Britan hot buttered toast , which I think the poem riffs on.
text: The post is still, I think, the most common term in Britain for what elsewhere might be called the mail .
text: (Think of "the Post Office", even in the US)
text: I tried searching corpora to justify that, but it' a bit difficult, because post is now in wide use to mean a post on an internet site.
text: But on the GloWbE corpus in the post to you has 15 instances in British sources and 1 in US; while in the mail to you has 5 US and 1 GB.
text: Edit:
text: I then thought of searching for "lost in the post|mail", and that gives a clear difference.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/1780/Colin Fine
score: 5
sents: text: "Butter on toast" isn't exactly an idiom, but butter is often used in similes and metaphors to describe something as soft, smooth, or meltable.
text: Your example though says " buttered on toast".
text: To butter means to spread butter, usually on bread or toast, so "
text: [if] bullies [could] be buttered on toast" is imagining that bullies could be spread as if they were soft as butter .
text: A bully is often spoken of as a "tough" or "hard" person, so to wish they were soft is the opposite.
text: "Lost in the post" means lost in the mail .
text: In British English, we usually say "post" (postman, post service etc), whereas in American English they say "mail".
text: THe poet appears to be wishing that school teachers would disappear without trace, as if lost in the mail.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/66325/Astralbee
score: 2
sents: text: I believe the general idea of the poem is to focus on why things are the way they are through counter-factuals.
text: The general form being: if thing wasn't thing then we wouldn't have thing.
text: For example: if a bell didn't ring would it actually be a bell?
text: Isn't that the essence of what a bell is?
text: Or with the losses line: if a loss was a win it wouldn't be a loss.
text: It's a tautology.
text: If a bell didn't ring it wouldn't be a bell.
text: Finally: why are bullies a problem?
text: Well if bullies didn't bully we wouldn't have a problem with bullies.
text: The fact that they don't melt like butter (meaning: be warm and caring to others) but are instead cold and hard is the entire problem!
text: It's the essence of the idea of a bully, taking it (the hardness and coldness of bullies)
text: away means changing the definition and conception of the word itself.
text: The post line almost certainly is talking about mail
text: but I'm not entirely sure the exact meaning the author intended with it.
text: It might be about teachers who refuse to admit they are incorrect (instead they should admit on some questions they are 'lost in the post' or 'out to sea'), but I feel it's a stretch.
text: I doubt the author intends it to mean what if teachers don't exist? because that would seem to clash with the final line of "this world would be better than most."
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/95562/eps
score: 1

Summary of the answers:
The post line almost certainly is talking about mail.
It is probable that the meaning of post is mail.