Select the most appropriate meaning of the underlined idiom in the following sentence. Instead of confusing others, let us call a spade a spade in front of the audience.

Correct — D. To call a spade a spade is to name a thing plainly, without softening it — to say the blunt truth in blunt words.

The sentence hands you the contrast: instead of confusing others. Whatever replaces confusing others must be clear, honest speech.

And it happens in front of the audience, so it is speech, not an attitude. Option (d), speak truthfully, is the meaning.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Be at strife — Strife is quarrelling. Plain speaking may provoke a quarrel, but the idiom describes how a person speaks, not that they are fighting anyone.
• (b)
  Remain silent — Silence is the reverse of the idiom. The speaker is proposing to say something in front of the audience, not to hold anything back.
• (c)
  Pretend superiority — Pretending superiority is putting on airs. This idiom involves no claim of rank at all — it is about calling things by their real names.

An idiom cannot be worked out from its parts, so the sentence around it is your evidence. Read what the idiom is set against.

Here the frame is instead of confusing others, delivered in front of the audience. The meaning has to be the cure for confusion, and it has to be public.

Call a spade a spade fits: to speak plainly and directly, using blunt words for blunt things, even when the truth is unwelcome.

Key facts

• Call a spade a spade means to speak plainly and truthfully, without euphemism.
• The idiom describes the manner of speech, not the speaker's mood or status.
• Be at strife means to be in conflict, which is about relations rather than about plain speech.

Common traps

• Reading the idiom as conflict because blunt speech can give offence
• Taking instead of as a hint that the sentence recommends saying nothing

No directly related past PYQ was found.