Mickey Mouse

I was watching TV the other day and I heard someone describe a new computer they had bought as Mickey Mouse.

“I bought this Mickey Mouse computer the other day – it only cost me a hundred pounds.”

I’m sure you know Mickey Mouse the Disney character, but what about Mickey Mouse the adjective?

The adjective sense actually developed during the Second World War, after a large quantity of low quality counterfeit Mickey Mouse watches flooded the UK and from then on anything that was seen to be cheap, of a low quality or unsophisticated was described as Mickey Mouse!

Vocabulary:

Mickey Mouse (adj.) - cheap, low quality

counterfeit (adj.) - fake, an illegal copy

flooded the UK - not literally a flood, but watches appeared in large numbers all over the UK

(Source: www.englishonline.org.cn)

Johnny Grammar is English Online's resident grammar teacher. Johnny loves to tackle your worst grammar nightmares and provide you with simple explanations.

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