词汇 | tongue in cheek |
词源 | tongue in cheek. Before Richard Barham invented this phrase in his The Ingoldsby Legends (1845) nobody stuck tongue in cheek as a humorous warning that something just said was in- sincere, so Barham could be credited with inventing the custom as well as the expression. Why he chose with tongue in cheek to describe someone engaging in insincerity or irony is a mystery. Especially as anyone actually speaking with tongue in cheek— the tongue tip lodged against the inside of the cheek—wouldn’t be understood at all. |
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