Melissa's Place

Rizo-smile

I am always quoting random bits of science-geeko-trivia only half-expecting that anyone is interested or listening or internalizing the useful information to any extent. My poor husband, although we've only known each other for five years, has obviously been subject to a high density of these quirky comments.

For instance, I spent all of the third year of my University degree in a Human Anatomy class learning all the skeletal muscles of the body. In this class, we learned about a wee little muscle called Rizorius (or Risorius) that is located in your mid-cheek and pulls the corners of your mouth out horizontally. When studying Rizorius, our professor pointed out that this little guy creates the fake smile we've all been subjected to at some point in their lives. So sometime years ago, when my husband gave me an obviously fake smile, I told him about Rizorius.

Today, I realized that all this time, all the random bits of uber-geeky-trivia, he has been internalizing, when he flashed me his exagerrated faker smile and said, "Rizorius!"

Note:

Wikipedia says, "The risorius retracts the angle of the mouth to produce a smile, albeit an insincere-looking one that does not involve the skin around the eyes. Compare with a real smile, which raises the lips with the action of zygomaticus major and zygomaticus minor muscles and causes "crow's feet" around the eyes using the orbicularis oculi muscles.

See diagram above.