# "cheesy" - when did it start applying to people and not just things?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheesy-when-did-it-start-applying-to-people-and-not-just-things/616195
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 19, 2012, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheesy-when-did-it-start-applying-to-people-and-not-just-things/616195 "2012-03-19T03:32:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2012, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheesy-when-did-it-start-applying-to-people-and-not-just-things/616195/1 "2012-03-19T03:32:31Z")
I grew up with “cheesy” meaning tacky, cheap, cliché or crappy - always applied to things: music, movies, consumer products, cultural artifacts.
Gradually I’m seeing it applied more often to people and their emotional affects. A cheesy person is not necessarily cheap or tacky, more overly sentimental or un-ironic in their manner. The usage is most often affectionate, whereas “cheesy” applied to things almost always meant they were junk.
Am I nuts, or is the word slowly changing its meaning?
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### Author:  [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2012, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheesy-when-did-it-start-applying-to-people-and-not-just-things/616195/2 "2012-03-19T04:12:08Z")
Apart from the obvious sense involving a connection with or comparison to cheese, _cheesy_ has a couple of distinct meanings.
You’ve got _cheesy_ meaning fine or showy, which I think is now obsolete. It’s connected, I suspect, with the slang term “the big cheese”, meaning an important or self-important person.
You’ve got _cheesy_ meaning inferior, second-rate, below par. This was always applicable to both things and people. PG Wodehouse uses the term fairly frequently with respect to both, from memory; that would be from the 1920s onwards. People in Wodehouse novels feel cheesy from causes as diverse as a hangover, food poisoning, social embarrassment or romantic rejection.
And you’ve got _cheesy_ meaning hackneyed, sentimental,false, tacky - a cheesy song, a cheesy grin. This is American in origin. I’ve never heard it applied to people; a singer of cheesy songs is not a cheesy singer.