one843 wrote:Where was I? Oh yes. What is "taking the mickey"?
Just for you, 1843.
Taking the mickey
Meaning
Tease or make fun of. Origin
There are various forms of this: take/extract the Mick/Micky/Mickey, although the 'take the Mickey' version is most often used in print.
It is often reported that the phrase originates as a variant of the slang phrase 'take the piss'. The thinking behind that is that micturate means piss, hence the phrase. There's no evidence for this though and it is now more generally accepted that it came about as rhyming slang. 'Taking the piss' does play its part though as the rhyming slang refers to a character called Micky Bliss, so 'taking the piss' became 'taking the Micky' (Bliss).
Taking the piss is reported as originating in the UK in the 1930s and 'taking the Mickey' probably came not long afterwards. The first form of the phrase in print comes from 1935:
G. Ingram, Cockney Cavalcade: "He wouldn't let Pancake ‘take the mike’ out of him."
Take the Mickey doesn't appear in print until 1952, in J. Henry's 'Who lie in Gaol': "She's a terror. I expect she'll try and take the mickey out of you all right. Don't you stand for nothin'."
Now I have a question for you. What is the significance of one843?
One man's meat is another's poison.