from whence is the phrase Mickey the Dunce derived? Especially in its use as to play Mickey the Dunce meaning to fake being ignorant. I suspected either an Irish-American slur or a Disney reference but I can not come up with anything definitive.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: daveb,

I've certainly never heard it used in UK English.

I've never heard it, either. However, I was interested to learn the etymology of dunce. It apparently was used to followers of the philosopy scholar John Duns Scotus. Unfortunately for Scotus, subsequent theologians took a dim view of all those who championed his viewpoint. These “Scotists,” “Dunsmen,” or “Dunses” were considered hairsplitting meatheads and, eventually, just “dunces.” See http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=dunce&searchmode=none

Googling "Mickey the Dunce" gets you a bunch of examples of contemporary use. EG:
"To assume that mortgage brokers could play Mickey the Dunce and not hurt anyone is flawed." (Boston Globe)
Mr. Lund said he "did not have an answer" to the question of whether CBS was putting its access to a Super Bowl at risk. "I don't want to play Mickey the Dunce," he said, "but I didn't participate in the N.F.L. negotiations and I don't know how the league intends to assign the rights to that fourth game." (NYTimes)
The Mickey-the-Dunce mantra of "I didn’t know anything about this” is an excuse Pitt wants to take away from CEOs in the future. (NewsMax.com)

I did google but all of the hits appeared to be of recent American usage. Wherever the phrase originates I'm afraid you'll need some input from the US as, like Richard and arnie, I have never come across it over here.

From google though it seems that there is no general consensus as to its exact meaning. Even the examples you cite seem to me to have different intended meanings.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

I think the context indicates that there is or once was a character named Mickey the Dunce in some literary or entertainment work, whom we can now imitate, playing Mickey the Dunce, either inadvertently because we're stupid or slyly to pretend we're stupid. So what is that work wherein Mickey first appears? Mickey Mouse shows up in a dunce cap in the 1930's, but is this an appropriated allusion to an earlier work or a coincidence, or is it the original source? And when did the phrase start appearing? If you guys are right that it isn't British, it may date to post-1840's American anti-Irish ethnic slurs, as "Mick" was a derogatory slang term for Irishman. I first heard the phrase from a Greek-American slumlord in the late 1970's or early 80's.

I'd never heard it before. Searching for the phrase in Google Books gives a respectful 13 hits, all with the meaning of 'fool'. Two of the earliest, 1970 and 1979, are in books by Don Asher, The Electric Cotillion and Honeycomb: Ballad of a North Beach Cabaret. Another early one, 1979, is from a book on psychology, Practical Psychology in Construction Management, by Tom Melvin. I have a feeling it's criminal argot or from the music industry, probably derived from the famous cartoon character who is simple and trusting.

I've never heard the phrase before. Google News says it appeared in a May 31,1932 newspaper.

quote:

Sometimes the best way to learn things is to play 'Mickey-the-dunce.

Welcome, daveb! See your PMs.

I've not heard of it, either. While looking for it, I did find from the not-always-reliable Urban Dictionary that "mickey" is an Irish slang word for "penis." Has anyone heard that before?

I've heard the word "mickey" used for all sorts of things, of which "taking the Mickey" is probably the most common in the UK. This is a response to a suggestion, claiming that it is surely not serious. For example,

"Could you lend me £100 and your car so I can take your daughter out?"

"Are you taking the Mickey, mate?"

I do not know the phrase's origin but It is certainly as old as I am.

There are probably as many euphemisms for penis as there are for almost anything, but "mickey" is not one that I have heard before.

For what it's worth, Wikipedia says the same thing. A dictionary of Irish slang says Mickey is a "child's name for a penis."

Here are definitions of mickey from the OED Online:

• U.S. slang, usually derogatory and usually capitalized, for a Roman Catholic or an Irishman
  
• slang for penis, chiefly Irish English (the first two quotes were from James Joyce, 1909 and 1922)
  
• Australian slang for a bullock, especially a wild or unbranded bullock
  
• Australian slang for vulva (rare)
  
• an Australian bird, the noisy miner, Manorina melanocephala
  
• a colloquial term for a small bottle of liquor, chiefly Canadian
  
• a U.S. regional term (especially in New York City) for a potato or baked potato, especially one roasted outdoors over a fire
  
• colloquial British for "to take the mickey (out of)": "to behave or speak satirically or mockingly; to make fun of, satirize, or debunk (a person or thing)" ("perhaps after Mickey Bliss, rhyming slang for piss")
  
• a Mickey Mouse cartoon
  
• U.S slang for a type of radar-assisted bombsight
  
• a Mickey Finn (a drugged alcoholic drink)

Mickey the Dunce is a
hard phrase to research.
I've Googled it out 'til my
search engine's sore.
Is he Irish or Disney,
from Farquhar or features?
I'll say "I don't get it" while
you hunt for more.

quote:

I've heard the word "mickey" used for all sorts of things

Yes, you are correct, Richard. And there's always "slipping someone a mickey..." That must be a reference to the last definition that Tinman posted.

Still searching...
In the 1870's and later there were bunch of popular early Broadway shows in New York. Among them, "The most popular burlesque musicals of the 1890s were created by comedians Joe Weber and Lew Fields. Weber played the short, rotund "Mike," while Fields was the tall and lean "Meyer," a bully who constantly schemed to swindle Mike out of his money."
Was Mike the original Mickey? Another candidate for the character is the even earlier oeuvre of Harrigan and Hart:
"The versatile Harrigan performed, produced, and directed while writing the scripts and lyrics. The action was always set on the scruffy streets of downtown Manhattan, with Harrigan playing politically ambitious Irish saloon owner "Dan Mulligan" and Hart winning praise as the African American washerwoman "Rebecca Allup." ... "After their "Mulligan Guards" sketch made them variety stars, the team developed a series of songs and sketches featuring lower class characters drawn from the streets of New York. In time, these sketches evolved into seventeen full length farcical musical comedies that delighted Broadway audiences from 1878 to 1885."

It will be a challenge to find libretti for these shows to see if MtD shows up.

Very interesting. Almost all the references speak of "playing Mickey the Dunce," in the sense of feigning stupidity or ignorance.

I found it back in 1932, in a newpaper's serialization of a novel. On May 31 the Chronicle Telegram (Elyria, Ohio) printed chapter 20 of The Sacred Eye: A Story of Mystery and Love in the South Seas, by Bruce E. Griggs:

. . .“We didn't want to run around whispering a lot of half-baked suspicions, getting you all steamed up. Sometimes the best way to learn things is to play 'Mickey-the-dunce.’ and— "
. . ."You see what your ‘watchful waiting’ got us, don’t you?” he asked with a half sneer.

And this from 1948:

Telephone Co. Agent Quizzed
Judge Weighs Testimony Bookmakers Could Not Get Special Service.
… Harrell told the court that he, personally, had participated in drawing up a company directive designed to keep telephones out of illegal hands. He reiterated a recent statement made in newswpaper advertisements that the company never knowingly provided service for bookmakers. … Judge MacLeod told telephone officials that "your company has played Mickey the Dunce for the last time so far as this court is concerned."

Hey, apologies for my newbieness - I hadn't read the rules when I posted a DD earlier in this thread. I was just responding with naive glee to the superficial aspects of the form, without adequate comprehension of its deeper pleasures. Here's another, hopefully more worthy, effort:

In again, Finnegan,
Mickey the Dunce - oh his
history mystery
leads me to grouse,
Will it turn out he's a
tatterdemalion
Irish-American
or just a mouse?

I like both of your poems. IMHO, the first one is better, despite the rule-breaking.

Welcome to the forum!