794: Cute as a Button Feb 9, 2017

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To be called "as cute as a button" would be certainly a compliment for most, regardless if either interlocutor does not indeed liken the listener to a button. There are a number of explanations one could find about why buttons of all things were selected: they're little and non-threatening; the word refers instead to flowers buddin'; but irrespective of the truth these all miss the underlying, and slightly dated insult within the phrase, which is also sometimes found as "as cute as a bug's ear". The word 'cute' may refer to someone's attractiveness, or to the feeling evoked by babies, animals, or things of that sort, but it started off meaning 'cleverness', and only later on from this the term was applied to general qualities besides being witty that someone might find attractive. This word comes from 'acute', which in the Latin, 'acutus' meant 'sharp' in the same way that 'sharp' means 'smart' today. To call someone "as cute as a button" in this way is to call someone "stupid".

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