Cute as a bug's ear

Posted by ESC on October 08, 2002

In Reply to: Cute as a bug's ear posted by Kikka on October 08, 2002

: I need to know if this is a regional saying, or if others have heard it used outside of the southeastern U.S.

This doesn't have anything about the region. But I'll look in other references and post again if I find something more specific.

CUTE AS A BUTTON - "cute, charming, attractive, almost always with the connotation of being small, 1868 (from the original 1731 English meaning of 'acute' or clever). Cute as a bug's ear, 1930; cute as a bug in a rug, 1942; cute as a button, 1946. Cute and keen were two of the most overused slang words of the late 1920s and 1930s." From Listening to America: An Illustrated History of Words and Phrases from Our Lively and Splendid Past by Stuart Berg Flexner (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1992.)