People say something is “cute” all the time these days re babies, kittens, the opposite sex etc. I can see the term “darling” being used in an 1800-1900’s context, but in what form did the concept of “cuteness” exist before that?
Where was the concept of cuteness 300, 400 + years ago. Does the specific notion of “cuteness” (in the “aww… that’s so cute” modern sense) exist in Shakespeare ?
I can’t really speak to the OP, but I do know that the word comes from “acute,” I suppose in the sense of “smart,” and that this change didn’t happen long ago – I’d guess in the 19th century. I’m sure the idea was well expressed by words like “precious” and “adorable” before that time – although the subtle infantilization promoted by modern media has maginified its place in our culture somewhat, I’d say.
It’s interesting that certainother languages have no single word for the concept, and have to add the meaning to existing words. For example, parts of the Spanish world would use “curioso” in many contexts where we’d use “cute”, but it originally just means “curious” or even “weird”.
My understanding is that it’s hardwired into human behavior, for good reasons, to regard snub nose, large eyes, helplessness, awkwardness of balance, smallness and delicacy, as traits in external entities that elicit compassionate, caring, parental affection in the observer – the good reasons, of course, being that they are traits associated with human babies, which need help the first year of their life, and less strongly so for several years thereafter, to survive and be safe.
Therefore, when a large-eyed, snubnosed bunny or an awkward large-eyed fawn is observed, it elicits the same sort of response by transference – they are “cute” because they have characteristics also associated with babies, which racial survival requires that adult caregivers consider as lovable even when they’re colicky, fretfully awake all night, and have diarrhea.
So my hunch is that Oggette the Cave Girl found bunnies and fawns as cute as Heather Mackenzie Jones the 21st century suburban girl does.
here’s an interesting theory I just made up:
Cuteness is a modern (post 1940’s) concept. The reason: cuteness is only possible when you have a very stable and confident life. Cute things are cute because they are extras, – “added attractions” to our lives, things that are not necessary for our fundamental survival.
Up through the 1930’s most people in American lived not so differently than Charles Dickens’ England. When you are hungry, nothing is cute. When you have 8 children, but only 6 of them live to adulthood, nothing is cute.
If you live on a farm, or work in a sweatshop, and barely have enough to eat-- cats are useful tools for keeping mice out of the barn, dogs are useful tools for rounding up the sheep, and children are useful for doing their chores (Think of Steinbecks’s Grapes of Wrath–the love the family gives to its children may be intense, but it is not “cute”. And they dont keep pets.)
We can afford to love cuteness, because we know that our children, like our kittens, are well fed ,and in no danger. ( There was even a slang term in the 1980’s for kids: “yuppie’s puppies”, which blurrs the line between children and pets–'cause it’s all about the cuteness.)
(I just made all that up as I read the OP. Does it make any sense? )
Since the Online Etymology Dictionary says that the first cite of cute in the sense of pretty dates from 1834, probably not.
And if you really think that people lived like in Dickens until the 1930s, definitely not. :smack:
Chappachula: How do you explain Betty Boop (1930)?
Interesting thought: were Victorian puppets (shudder) considered kawaii back in the day?
All the farm kids I know think kittens are cute.
And what is a kawaii?
I don’t think it adds up much. We might not have been able to keep things around on ‘cute appeal’ before an age of rampant prosperity, but that doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t feel an appeal to them, especially if Polycarp’s argument holds water… it’d be just more like, “ooh, cute, bunny.” (Oggette’s boyfriend Ug smashes the bunny with his club because they need something to eat.) Also, royals and the idle rich have been around for hundreds of years, and they’ve always had enough prosperity for extras and luxuries, so they could definitely afford to keep pets around and commission art based on ‘cute appeal.’
On the other hand, if cute appeal is not so much hardwired as a socialization of unneeded luxury, then it might well have taken off in the era you mention, simply because a wider social base could then exist for the appreciation of luxuries. But I don’t really think that that’s it.
I’ve never been hungry or poor, but I don’t think it really diminishes awareness of beauty or other things that are essentially unrelated to the problems of survival… of course, the problems of survival loom larger and overshadow them, but that’s not quite the same thing.
“Kawaii” is simply Japanese for “cute” - except recently it’s become a sort of heightened, stylised super-cuteness.
gee, I dunno. And now that I think about it, Shirley Temple was popular, too and she was pretty cute back then. So maybe I’m totally wrong.
But on the other hand, can somebody tell me about Shirley Temple? Maybe she was so popular during the Depression because cuteness was a new concept that had never before been so brashly displayed in public and celebrated openly?
Well, Chaucer’s Prioress peppers her speech with diminutives, surrounds herself with pampered toy dogs, and weeps over mice caught in a trap (but gleefully tells stories where the good guys massacre the Jews). I’m thinking that Chaucer probably understood the concept of “cute” – as well as its abuses – even if he didn’t have a word for it.
