Learn English – Evolution of “push somebody’s buttons” and “know what buttons to push”

colloquialismsetymologyidioms

Colloquially speaking, "to push somebody's buttons" means to irritate or annoy the person. And, "know what buttons to push" means to know what to do to get people to act the way you want.

I can't understand how come "buttons" are associated with people and their behavior. How did these idioms come to be?

Edit: I feel I am not being clear with the question. What I intend to understand is the relation of a person's pysch and buttons. As it is unusual to talk of hurting a machine's feeling, likewise it should be unusual to speak of somebody's button as well. This being my point, how did the metaphorical idiom originate(and considered meaningful)?

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It's a metaphorical usage, so there doesn't have to be a direct link between people and pushing the buttons they don't have.

Dictionary.com indicates the phrase originated in 1920s America, when domestic electricity was being installed on a massive scale. The ability to push a button to turn something on had a big impact on lifestyle, and the metaphor spilled over into other things which have an immediate effect — like being able to trigger a specific emotion.

During the 1920s the spread of technology transformed the way average Americans lived their daily lives. In 1920 only 34.7 percent of American dwellings had electricity; by 1930 67.9 percent had electric power. In the cities the growth was even more dramatic: 84.8 percent of all urban homes were wired for electricity by 1930, compared to only 47.4 percent a decade earlier.

At the turn of the century, families with a comfortable income depended on servants, hired labor, and delivery men to support their day-to-day lives. The new technology available in the 1920s—combined with a diminishing supply of people willing to work as servants—caused more and more middle-class fami-lies to do their own housework. By 1926 80 percent of American homes with incomes more than $3,000 had vacuum cleaners and washing machines.

American Decades © The Gale Group Inc

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Learn English – Why does “tell me about it” not mean “tell me about it”

It's a sarcastic response.

Taken literally the sentence would mean the speaker isn't already familiar with the situation and wants more information. However it is rarely (these days never) meant literally, and is used sarcastically to mean the opposite. I.e. That the speaker is already familiar with the situation. Its meaning is similar to the expression, "You don't say?", where the speaker is acting like they don't already know, when in fact they do.

The difference between these two expressions however is that, "Tell me about it", has taken on a sympathetic tone over the years, indicating shared misery, whereas, "You don't say?", is an insult where you don't actually care what the person has to say.

There's little in the words themselves to indicate that difference. That difference is simply the connotations those expressions have taken on over time. Tone of voice is pretty critical here, because the difference between a sympathetic statement and an insulting one is simply a different inflection while saying the exact same words.

Learn English – the history and geographic area of the word “finna?”

This is more of a side note, but when I first saw someone use the word 'finna', I though they had made a typo and meant to write 'gonna'!

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I is next to O on the Qwerty keyboard.
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Learn English – Why does “tell me about it” not mean “tell me about it”

Learn English – the history and geographic area of the word “finna?”

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