The term first appeared in print in ‘The Fair Maid of Perth’, by that inveterate coiner of phrases, Sir Walter Scott, 1828:

“The fellow who gave this all-hail thrust his tongue in his cheek to some scapegraces like himself.”

Tongue-in-cheek humour in fiction often takes the form of gentle parodies. Such stories seem to abide by the conventions of an established serious genre, while in reality, they gently poke fun at some aspects of that genre. A tongue-in-cheek work still relies on these conventions and is not the same as a farce. Good examples of films that are made in a tongue-in-cheek way are Scream, A Mid-Summer 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 humor does not typically breach the fourth wall.

Knowing full well it hasn’t happened.

It is a strategy used often in everyday speech that is not quite sarcastic.

When I employ “tongue in cheek when writing letter, I do the symbol

-)

to indicate my tongue in my cheek. My correspondents know what I mean.

A joke normally evokes associations with jest, frivolity, levity, and light-heartedness.

“Tongue in cheek” can be facetious, to be sure, but very often the purpose goes beyond the purely humorous, extending to the ironically wry.