The English language expression silver spoon is synonymous with wealth, especially inherited wealth; someone born into a wealthy family is said to have "been born with a silver spoon in his mouth". As an adjective, "silver-spoon" describes someone who has a prosperous background or is of a well-to-do family environment. In Australia the expression "silvertail" is also used, although it has an almost identical meaning. It has been used in cultural or political situations to describe someone as aristocratic or out of touch with the common people.
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Before the place setting became popular around 1700, people brought their own spoons to the table, carrying them in the same way that people today carry wallet and keys. In pre-modern times, ownership of a silver spoon was an indication of social class, denoting membership in the land-owning classes. In the Middle Ages, when farmers and craftsmen worked long hours and frequently got dirt under their fingernails, it was important to not be mistaken for a serf or escaped slave. Under these circumstances, a silver spoon served the functional equivalent of passport, driving licence, and credit card. Since most members of the land-owning classes were smallhold farmers and craftsmen, the silver spoon was primarily a lower-middle-class cultural marker.
Silver spoons, because of their weight and number, were often one of the most valuable parts of a middle-class household's effects, a traditional target for burglars. For example, in the feature film Far and Away, the character Shannon plans to pay for her emigration from Ireland to the United States with spoons that she stole from her wealthy landowner parents.
Beyond their value and aesthetics, silver utensils self-sanitize: silver has antimicrobial properties, due to the oligodynamic effect.
Silver spoons have also been used to detect poison, particularly in the Korean Joseon Dynasty: due to its reactivity, silver tarnishes on contact with sulfur, thus detecting the presence of arsenic sulfides and warning of arsenic poisoning.[1] During the Joseon Dynasty, kings had multiple wives and they all competed for their sons to inherit the throne. Usually, the first-born son inherited everything, so the other queens would poison the food to kill him. The silver spoon was used to detect if the food had any kind of poisonous chemicals.
The term has frequently made its way into popular music.Carcass's song "Blind Bleeding the Blind" from their album Heartwork contains the poignant line, "Silver spoon to dig communal graves" Creedence Clearwater Revival's Fortunate Son includes the lyrics "Some folks were born silver spoon in hand." In the song "Cats in the Cradle," the lyrics say: "... And the cats in the cradle and the silver spoon..." In the song She Came In Through The Bathroom Window by the Beatles, the lyrics say, "She came in through the bathroom window, protected by her silver spoon," meaning the girl would have no trouble being naughty. One line of the Eagles song Witchy Woman is "And she drove herself to madness with a silver spoon." The first few lines from the song Gold Dust Woman by Fleetwood Mac are, "Rock on, gold dust woman/Take your silver spoon/And dig your grave." The lyrics from the 1985 song The Wolf by Heart start with "You were born to privilege, lickin' on a silver spoon." The song This is Music by The Verve features the lyrics "I stand accused just like you, for being born without a silver spoon." The song Substitute, by The Who parodies this term with the lyrics, "I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth." Yoko Ono mourns the loss of her "silver spoon" in a line in the song Mrs. Lennon. In his song Just Like Greta, Van Morrison says "Then sometimes it feels so easy, like I was born with a silver spoon".
Then-Texas State Treasurer Ann Richards was best known for saying, "Poor George. He can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth," at the 1988 Democratic National Convention.
The Italian cookbook Il cucchiaio d'argento translates to "The Silver Spoon" and uses that title in its English edition; the title is, according to the introduction to the Phaidon Press printing, derived from the English expression.
John Galsworthy's novel The Forsyte Saga contains a chapter called "The Silver Spoon," referring to a cockered heiress Fleur Forsyte.
The term "gold spoon" is much less commonly used, but finds occasional use, such as the 1840 American Gold Spoon Oration criticizing then-president Martin Van Buren for his supposedly luxurious lifestyle.
There are similar expressions in other languages. For example, in Portuguese, an expression translated as "born in a gold cradle" is equivalent contextually to the English, "born with a silver spoon."
The term silver spoon today is also used to describe someone who may not have been born into wealth, but instead has opportunities presented at them which could lead to wealth, on a frequent basis. Even when things look bleak an opportunity will suddenly present itself that can turn the persons fortune. This could be by inherited wealth that they were unaware of, and may appear to have a continuous run of good luck.