Is there another meaning for the phrase “taking a piss”, or what? Someone said it in the movie Snatch, and I’ve heard it elsewhere too (they said “Are you taking a piss?”). I guess it may mean “are you joking with me?”
“Taking THE piss” is what you heard. It’s short for, “Taking the piss out of someone”. It means to make fun of someone often with sarcasm or irony. It’s common in England and here in Australia.n
What Mersavets said. In fact, it goes even further and becomes a noun. A parody or lampoon of a subject can be called a “piss take” of that subject.
I belive an american version would be “taking the micky”.
I think that one’s British too. I remember an episode of Minder in which Mr Chisholm said to his offsider, “Jones, are you attempting to extract the Michael?”
… or “extracting the Hug & Kiss” which is rhyming slang for what is already slang.
There was another thread about this a while back.
Also confusing is when Americans describe someone as ‘pissed’ (angry or upset) - to us wacky brits, ‘Pissed’ means drunk, although ‘pissed off’ means angry.
Agree with one caveat: Comparing it with “Having fun with me” limits “Taking the piss” to light-hearted banter when it could also be interpreted as something a little more provocative. As in (perhaps) “You taking the piss, you bastard ?” which might, in turn, be followed by a closing of the physical proximity.
And thanks, The Dog for happy reminders of Arfur Daley and the boys!
‘Taking the piss’ can have a couple of shades of meaning;
In one sense it can mean deriding or ridiculing someone or something; ‘Taking the piss out of’ (=‘Taking the mickey’)
Another usage is when someone oversteps an unspoken boundary or exceeds what is generally considered reasonable behaviour, so if I had a box of chocolates on the table and said to my guests ‘help yourself to a chocolate’, then found that one guest had taken the whole box home with him, people might say ‘sure, Mangetout said help youselves, but that was taking the piss’ (=‘takes the biscuit’)
A nice little online UK slang dictionary here
Originally, I was going to make the distinction between Autralian and English usage (I’m not sure if the phrase is used in the rest of Britain). In Australia, I think it really only refers to light-hearted banter. In England however, it is used in an exte nded form, as others have ponted out, to characterise disrepectful behaviour or the taking of liberties. I also found it to be much more common than it is here in Australia (I mean the phrase; definitely not the behaviour). o{
On the same (or similar subject).
The origin is derived from an erection caused through pressure on the bladder, this was know as early as 1782 (Grosse’s Dictionary) as being “Piss Proud”. This term for a “faux erection” was extended to anyone acting in an self important manner, and led to the request to “piss off” (pysiologically to release the pressure on the bladder and therefore remove the erection) likewise to deflate a pompous person was to “take the piss”.
With time and the habit of bowdlerising the language this became transmuted into “take the micturation” which rapidly was shortened to “take the mickey”
Walrus
This is definately not an American expression. If you said this to an American, she or he would probably think it was some sort of obscure Disney reference. The only people who’d understand you would be Anglophiles or fans of British movies and TV shows.
I thought “taking the mickey” had to do with pretending to fall victim to someone’s trap. As in when slipped a Mickey*, he took it. Wow did I get that wrong!
- Slipping a Mickey or Mickey Finn: means drugging someone through drink, usually liquor, to render them helpless.