pushing at boundaries of a good taste

Question

Hi dear friendsI don't exactly know the meaning of the underlined part. Please tell it in simple English:I suppose that a sympathy card with pop-up daisies may be pushing at the boundaries!of good taste!yours hossein

KrisBlueNZ · Accepted Answer

There is a boundary, or a "line", between funny and bad taste.
It can be funny to make jokes about a real problem, and it can be EMPOWERING for people to laugh at a real problem that frightens them. Some greeting cards try to take a serious situation (e.g. an illness, or a death in the family) and make a joke about it, in an attempt to cheer people up, and make them laugh at the problem, rather than getting bogged down in MISERY and HOPELESSNESS. But you have to be careful. If you go too far, the joke "falls flat" and just makes people feel worse about their situation, and resentful towards the person who gave them the greeting card or told them the joke.

For example, let's say you're visiting a friend in hospital who has cancer. He's hooked up to a drip, and surrounded by machines that make beeping sounds and display his heartbeat. You've seen TV drama shows, so you know what I mean. Well, if you give him a greeting card that has pictures of those machines, and shows doctors and nurses jumping on the hospital bed, swinging from the tubes and having a party, that might cheer him up. But if the greeting card also shows a clock and a coffin hidden under the bed, it would have the opposite effect. This is what is meant by the line, or boundary, between good taste and bad taste.

The card in your example is a sympathy card, which you give to someone when a close friend or family member has died. In societies where Christianity is the prevalent religion, it might be appropriate for the card to have a "pearly gates" joke - a cartoon of someone arriving at the gates to heaven, with St. Peter (the guardian of the gates of heaven, I think) making a little joke. That might cheer up the person who has lost their husband or father or friend. But a card showing worms burrowing into a dead body would have the opposite effect.

A card with pop-up daisies is making a joke on the phrase "pushing up the daisies", which is what dead people are said to do - because they are buried in the ground, and daisies often grow above them, they are said to be "pushing them up". So the card would be making a joke on that phrase. Whether that joke is in good taste or bad taste probably depends on the personality of the person receiving the card, and the relationship between the giver and the receiver of the card, but it's definitely "pushing the boundaries" between good taste and bad taste.

Vorpar · Answer

It may be offensive.

pushing at boundaries of a good taste

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