According to Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English (Bookshop|Amazon) by Ben Yagoda, the word smarmy, meaning “unctuous” or “ingratiating,” may come from a 19th-century magazine contest, in which readers sent in...
Since the early 19th century, to soft-soap someone is to flatter them or give them excessively deferential treatment. The idea is that soft soap is unctuous and if you pour soft soap down someone’s back or pour soft soap into someone’s...