Cheeky!

An American friend asked me the other day what ‘cheeky’ meant, as in ‘cheeky monkey’. When I thought about it, cheeky, or cheeky has a whole range of meanings from being mischievous in a funny way to being insolent and outrageous. Even when applied to children a ‘cheeky’ kid could funny in a cute, sweet way, or rude in a definitely not cute way. A cheeky adult could also be rude in a mildly obscene but funny way, or taking someone for granted, or being impertinent or taking advantage of a situation (which could me amusing, mildly irritating, or very annoying!!)

Even the noun cheek meaning the side of the face, can be applied to another part of the body, in fact the buttocks. The facial cheek comes from Old English meaning jaw and jawbone, but later came also mean the fleshy side of the mouth, maybe linked to yet another word which became jowl. maybe it came from the Old English word to chew, or maybe from Proto-German, but in many languages the words for jaw and cheek are often linked or similar or the same as each other. A similar use of a word connected to the face is being lippy or being mouthy – as in being insolent.

Maybe the other bodily meaning for cheek, the buttocks’ is what led to the idea of cheeky meaning rude or insolent and this meaning seems to have started or at least been noted at the turn of sixteenth century… which might somewhat change the meaning of  ‘turn the other cheek’!

Other ways of using ‘cheek’ –

• giving cheek – being rude or provocative usually to a teacher, parent boss
• having the cheek – daring to do something which offends someone else – have the nerve to do something
• got a cheek – similar to having the cheek!

I’ve recently noticed my children use it in a different way – for example, if they are going out they might have ‘a cheeky little cocktail’ before they go, or when they are out and have a snack, they might have ‘a cheeky little’ something to eat.

So… going back to cheeky monkey, it’s usually not an actual monkey but a child or young person who is being mischievous or funny but not meaning any harm by it.

And then the is the original Cheeky Chappie, the comedian Max Miller; he was one of the original stand-ups, born in 1894 and died in 1963. His ‘cheek’ was often very rude indeed, a lot of innuendo and play on words; enormously popular, he perhaps led the way for the current style of comedians, who maybe think they are being so modern and ahead of the field!

http://https://youtu.be/sBBonVMUlFY