Tongue-in-cheek

Tongue-in-cheek is a term used to refer to humour in which a statement, or an entire fictional work, is not meant to be taken seriously, but its lack of seriousness is subtle. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "Ironic, slyly humorous; not meant to be taken seriously".

Tongue-in-cheek fiction seems to abide by the conventions of an established serious genre, but gently pokes fun at some aspects of that genre, while still relying on its conventions. Examples of tongue-in-cheek films are Scream, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, Shaun of the Dead, Demolition Man, True Lies, or Hot Fuzz. Note that these films are still faithful to their genre (slasher, musical, zombie, action, spy, and police-thriller respectively) and are not out-and-out parodies such as Airplane! or Scary Movie.

Tongue-in-cheek is also a growing form of humor amongst generation X-ers, i.e. people in their late 20's. This form of speech will be found in their ever day communications with others. An example of this tongue-in-cheek humor display would perhaps be the referencing of ones self by using only their first initial and adding "man" to the end, i.e. Evan would refer to himself as "E-man." This self-referencing is not meant to be taken seriously but is delivered in a subtle even serious way, leading those around to believe that the person still feels that this is a modern and perhaps even "hip" way to introduce and refer to himself/herself when speaking with others.

The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest recorded use of the term was in a 1933 when a Times Literary Supplement review described Shooting the Bull as "a tongue-in-the-cheek march through newspaperdom". It appeared in Webster's Dictionary the following year.

[edit] References

Mary Morris (1988). Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-015862-X. 

The Rev. Richard H. Barham (1921). The Ingoldsby Legends or Mirth and Marvels. Oxford University Press.