|
We suspect that it has something to do with the way your mouth looks when you say "cheese." It looks like you're smiling. But we're not happy with that glib response. We want the official origin. Alas, we searched high and low for the source of the old photographer's phrase, "Say cheese," but came up empty-handed. We were almost fooled by Luke Swartz's proposed origin, until we read the disclaimer at the bottom declaring it untrue. Even our old standbys let us down. Michael Quinion's World Wide Words gave us the scoop on the origin of the phrase "the big cheese," but not "say cheese." A
lengthy discussion thread at Pseudo Dictionary also came up short. We did learn that "cheesing" is a slang term for smiling. We also found out that the Persian word "chiz" means "thing," hence the expression, "This is the real chiz (cheese)." But in terms of your question, we're going to have to revert to our first snappy comeback. Apologies.
|
