Minor Queries Answered.
_Call a Spade, a Spade._--What is the origin of the common saying _to
call a spade, a spade_? Is it an old proverb or a quotation? In a letter
of Melancthon's to Archbishop Cranmer respecting the formularies of the
Anglican Church, dated May 1st, 1548, the following sentence occurs,
which seems to be another form of it:--
"In Ecclesiâ rectius, _scapham, scapham dicere_; nec objicere
posteris ambigua dicta."
Is _scapham, scapham dicere_, I would also ask, a classical quotation,
or a modern Latin version of the other expression?