Product Code Database
Tongue-in-cheek is an idiom that describes a humorous or sarcasm statement expressed in a serious manner.
The physical act of putting one's tongue into one's cheek once signified contempt. For example, in Tobias Smollett's The Adventures of Roderick Random, which was published in 1748, the eponymous hero takes a coach to Bath and on the way apprehends a highwayman. This provokes an altercation with a less brave passenger:
The phrase appears in 1828 in The Fair Maid of Perth by Sir Walter Scott:
It is not clear how Scott intended readers to understand the phrase. The more modern irony sense appeared in a poem in The Ingoldsby Legends (1842) by the English clergyman Richard Barham, in which a Frenchman inspects a watch and cries:
The ironic usage originates with the idea of suppressed mirth—biting one's tongue to prevent an outburst of laughter.
|
|
