<P> The phrase appears in 1828 in The Fair Maid of Perth by Sir Walter Scott: </P> <P> The fellow who gave this all - hail thrust his tongue in his cheek to some scapegraces like himself . </P> <P> It's not clear how Scott intended readers to understand the phrase . The more modern ironic sense appears in the 1842 poem "The Ingoldsby Legends" by the English clergyman Richard Barham, in which a Frenchman inspects a watch and cries: </P> <P>' Superbe! Magnifique!' / (with his tongue in his cheek) </P>

Where did the saying tongue in cheek come from