High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! To "call a spade a spade" is to speak honestly and directly about a topic, specifically topics that others may avoid speaking about due to their sensitivity or embarrassing nature. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1913) defines it as To be outspoken, blunt, even to the point of rudeness; to call things by their proper names without any "beating about the bush".The Oxford English Dictionary records a more forceful variant, "to call a spade a bloody shovel", attested since 1919. It is clear that the term shovel is used as a comparable but bigger tool than a spade.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 (which contradicts the very meaning of the term).