Grant Barrett said:
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Is there any etymological connection between the dairy product and the adjective cheesy, meaning inferior, cheap, or otherwise sub-par? This descriptive term for something lowbrow or poorly made at one point had positive connotations in the 1800s, when something great could be said to be cheesy as a rare Stilton. Over time, though, cheesy took on the connotation of something unappealing, an apparent reference to a low quality, stinky cheese....
This site reports that Yankee was meant to be insulting and might derive from 'cheese'. The OED does not mention much of this. If the link is true, Yankee is another word indicating cheese with a poor connotation.
Emmett
I think this qualifies as a paraprosdokian (and I've always thought it was hilarious):
An nun, a dwarf, and a rabbi walk into a bar. The bartender says "What is this, some kind of joke?"
On the other hand ... maybe it's just self-referential, and in a different class entirely.
I have never done this before - left this site to look something up online (books and other resources requiring leaving the room, but not leaving the computer site). I vaguely recalled cheesy having something to do with Urdu and sure enough, I found a reference to 1818 Urdu meaning "a thing". By 1858, it had entered mainstream (British) English meaning "showy". Then it went though the usual meaning changes slang goes through, but having to do with cheese seems to be a retroetymology.
Probably the more famous use of lief in Shakespeare is in Hamlet's advice to the players, where he opposes artifice in delivery with a preference that the town crier deliver the lines.
I have been told the origin of hipster referred to opium dens where addicts would lie on their hips, smoking the drug - thus originally a hipster was an addict, even if only marijuana which is rarely consumed lying on one's hip. Thus, it is unlikely a hipster would self-identify as such.
Paraprosdokian: (sounds like an Armenian surname 
) There was once a Lifebouy commercial that would get the treatment from kids. Singing in the bathtub, singing with joy; but Joy got mad and left.
When Robert Briscoe was Lord Mayor of Dublin, he was once introduced at a formal occasion, "Once there was an Irishman and a Jew, and he is our speaker tonight."
The joke I heard that first defined "hipster" for me is this one:
Q: How many hipsters does it take to change a light bulb?
A: It's a pretty obscure number. I'm sure you've never heard of it.
What *I* got from that was that they seem to think they're on the bleeding edge of fads and want to feel superior. From what you guys said, that may not be right?
I recently heard this one:
"I just had hip surgery. You've probably never heard of it."