"Cute as a Button"

Isn't this kitten just as cute as a button?

Well, yes, of course it is. It's a kitten. Kittens are almost always the epitome of cute. But since when are buttons cute? Where did that saying come from?
That's a question I can't answer. But I remember a time when that saying irked me beyond reason. When I was younger, I could never understand it when someone would refer to an inanimate object as cute. "That's such a cute camera!", "What a cute little pothole!", "That lamb chop is adorable!" Well, if the lamb chop in question were the beloved puppet, I would have been able to understand. But as it was, I could not fathom how a piece of meat could be cute. Kittens were cute. Babies were cute. Potholes? Lamb chops? Not cute.

Calling those kinds of things "cute" now doesn't bother me. In fact, I often do it myself (although I'm still not a huge fan of saying my food is cute). So what has changed since then?

Keep in mind that this was my pet peeve when I was very young, in elementary school, so it was before I became a wacky word woman. I was already wacky, perhaps, but not an avid reader or writer.

I realize now that what erased "cute as a button" from my list of word-related pet peeves was personification. Back when I was little, only living things could be cute, like bunnies or ducks. But once I understood that people could give human value to objects, that calling a pothole cute was a result of imagining it as something with a heart and soul just like the fluffiest of animals, I finally realized that it wasn't absurd at all. It was just a way of making sense of the world, however odd that may sound.

So the next time I hear "cute as a button," I know it won't get on my nerves. That button could be the cutest thing this side of a pet shop. Who am I to say?