To absolutely hate the misuse of the word 'cheeky?'

[ellesapelle]

In my understanding, the word 'cheeky' refers to a child talking back or being rude.

Over the last few years, I've noticed people using it when referring to going out for a drink - as in 'are you up for a few cheeky drinks?' Why? If I was a 15 year old sneaking out to drink cider at a bus stop then i could possibly understand why the drinking might be considered 'cheeky'. But not when I'm a grown woman going out for a drink on a Saturday night.

There's an advert for mineral water at the moment where the guy talks about having a 'cheeky Volvic'. It makes me so angry! My brother is a bit of a 'lad' and is always going on about 'cheeky drinks' (and 'banter' too, but that's another AIBU) and it drives me mad. So am I being unreasonable in wanting to scream at anyone who talks about having 'a few cheeky vinos', or is this a perfectly acceptable use of English?

YABU!!

Why would it make you so angry? and what makes you think that it should only refer to a child being rude?

this is not really answering your question but i have had two, yes, two ex-boyfs who called me Cheeky as a petname. As in "Hello cheeky! "I love you, cheeky". I bloody hated it.

TragicallyHip - the thing about children being rude was too narrow a definition. I should've included adults or people of all ages taking liberties. But I still don't get the 'cheeky drinks' thing.

ah, the evolution of language is a strange thing

Oh and another thing that annoys me about it is that it always seems to be accompanied by a comedy voice or silly fake accent - often Mockney.

YABU - My husband has been talking about going for a cheeky pint since we were students 18 years ago! Not a new phrase at all. No silly accent required. BTW a cheeky pint was deemed to mean at least 5 pints!

Cheeky to me means pushing your luck. Whether its a child backchatting or a bloke/woman staying out for a couple of drinks when they should probably be somewhere else.

YANBU to hate anything if thats the way you feel.

YANBU about that stupid advert.
How is it "cheeky" in any sense of the word, to drink some water.

It doesn't annoy me exactly but the mockney-voiced "cheeky pint" thing does raise an internal eye roll from me.

See also: the adding of -age on to the end of nouns to make them verbs. e.g. "Anyone up for a bit of lunchage?"

or actually, "I'm going out for some cheeky pintage"

(That was another ex-boyf).

Tbh I think of cheeky as a cutesy term.. "you cheeky monkey" etc which I call DS sometimes
I would probably say "lets go for a cheeky pint" meaning lets go for a quite pint but definitely not in a mockney accent, I don't know anyone who does that