Cheesy

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Susie from Dallas.

Susie, welcome.

Hi, Susie. How are you doing?

I am fine, thank you.

How can we help?

Well, I had the question about the word, the slang term, cheesy. My friends have used that to describe music or maybe an album cover or something, and I always wondered what it means. And I’ve tried to look it up, and I couldn’t find it in any slang dictionaries.

What’s your impression?

When they say cheesy?

Oh, well, I think of something that’s corny or kitschy, but I’ve tried to figure out what the distinction, like why would you say cheesy instead of corny? Where did this word come from? What does it have to do with cheese?

It’s a really good question because it’s one of those variable terms that’s automatically negative, but you’re never 100% sure in what way they meant it to be negative.

Right.

Because kitschy and corny to me are very different things. Cheesy as in poorly made exists or cheesy as in beneath me is another one of those things. Or cheesy as in lowbrow. These are all variations on a kind of derogatory take on something that somebody else has done or said or performed.

Yeah, and sometimes it’s cheesy, but you still have a certain affection for it.

Oh, right.

In spite of it not being quite up to snuff.

Yeah, I definitely have that use of cheesy. You’ll say things like, I know it’s cheesy, but you know what we did? We just went to see the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie because whatever. It was a lot of fun, right?

Right.

Something like that. Maybe you wouldn’t think that was cheesy. I don’t know. And so your group of people, they all use cheesy in that way.

Right.

They mean it in a derogatory way, for sure. So maybe it refers to the negative characteristics of cheese, you know, that it can be a wonderful thing. I mean, I don’t want to get angry emails from Wisconsin. But, you know. But I think even the people in cheese country would agree that poorly made cheese has these particular characteristics that you’re like, you could have done better, right? It’s like it doesn’t have the right texture or the taste or the feel, right?

Yeah, or cheese just, I mean, think of the essence of cheese, you know. It’s smelly and oozy and sometimes it just sits there, you know, dumb as a wheel of cheese.

All right, let’s see if we can break down a little bit of the history of cheesy. It’s really interesting. It first pops up about 100 years ago, maybe a little bit more, 120 years ago. And it shows up at first to mean inferior or cheap or even nasty. And so the first guess for most lexicographers, people like me who make dictionaries, is that it probably referred to low-quality cheese that stank, like stinky cheese. Not like a good stilton that’s supposed to stink, but the kind of cheese that means like they didn’t do the job well.

Okay.

So that’s the first guess there. And also there’s another guess that has to do with cheese that doesn’t have the right consistency. Like it crumbles when it’s not supposed to crumble or it oozes when it’s not supposed to ooze. And in this way, it’s not a well-made cheese.

Okay.

That’s the theory there. But it kind of transfers itself, particularly when it shows up in the United States. Cheesy starts to refer to pop culture that is hackneyed or cliched or melodramatic or like falsely sentimental, these sort of things. But at the same time, you might still like it or it might still be really popular. And so we see cheesy slowly move just to mean second rate or bad to meaning, all right, not the best of its kind, but still in some way kind of pleasant.

And I guess a good stilton might actually be that, right?

I don’t know if you know a good stilton.

Yeah, I’m vegan, so I don’t eat cheese.

Yeah, soy cheese is just not the same.

Yeah, so as a vegan, you use the word cheesy?

Well, no, I don’t use the word because I haven’t really identified with that word. I couldn’t figure out why they would use that.

That’s interesting. I think what you’re saying to me is that when you hear your friends say cheesy, you’ve got a question automatically that you need to ask them. It’s like, how did you mean that?

Right?

You’re probably already doing that, just seeking clarity because it’s such a variable term. But don’t we all kind of know what it means?

Well, it means I don’t approve in general, but I don’t approve how.

Especially if you’re a vegan.

Yeah.

I’ve got one interesting little fact for you. What’s really interesting is that cheesy used to be positive.

Really?

Yes. You’ll find it in the much older slang dictionaries in the 1800s where it meant smart or excellent. And interestingly enough, it was sometimes compared to cheesy as a rare stilton. And as I mentioned, the stilton is considered a very good cheese if you can stomach it. Cheesy is really variable, like a lot of slang. It’s got these nuances depending upon the crowd and its context. You’re going to have to seek clarity from people when you hear or read them using the word cheesy.

Okay.

Or talk them out of eating it.

I’ll try.

Susie, thank you so much for your call.

Okay, thank you.

Take care now.

All right, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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