There was a small but perfectly formed debate in the letters pages recently on the subject of smiling which, in case you missed it, is worth recapping. It started when Joan Ledbetter of Greystones (March 26th) suggested a national "smile day". This would be along the lines of such popular fund-raising events as Daffodil Day, Happy Heart Day, Budget Day and so on, but the idea would be to raise spirits rather than money. A smile "costs nothing, and the effect can transform a person", Joan claimed.
Her cost-benefit analysis was disputed, however, by David Smith of Artane. In the second and final letter of the series (March 29th), he argued that a smile was free only if it was "genuine", and suggested her projections wouldn't stand up when applied to the "American have-a-nice-day" model which, he suggested, combined high maintenance with low transformation potential. He concluded that "real gruffness" was preferable to a fake smile, any day.
Personally, I'm not sure that real gruffness is as cheap as it looks, either (and as for fake gruffness, I've watched senior lawyers do that in the Four Courts and I wouldn't want to be paying for it!). But the debate, short as it was, highlighted the complexity of the whole smiling issue, and some of the problems that need to be ironed out if we attempt anything as potentially divisive as a national smile day.
For one thing, it's well known that men and women generally, and not just our two correspondents, have different approaches to the issue. There are no statistics for casual, everyday smiling. But studies show that in formal, evening-wear situations - for example when sitting for portrait artists - women are more likely to project the left side of the face than the right. This is because the left side of the face is controlled by the right cerebral hemisphere, which handles the emotional end of the central nervous system's business.
Men are more likely to project the right side, which is controlled by the left hemisphere, known to be predominantly rational in its approach, except for its absolute refusal, when lost, to ask directions. The figures are complicated by the fact that many artists are left-handed and that, while self-portraits are predominantly right-facing, this is because the artists were using mirrors. But, trust me or we'll be here all day, studies do show whatever it was I claimed back there.
It's also worth noting that the evolution of smiling as we know it has been heavily influenced by the development of dentistry, at least according to a feature last year in the Daily Telegraph, which I knew would come in handy sooner or later.
It was about an academic at England's Warwick University, who had traced the first representation of an open-mouth smile "in polite society" to a 1787 self-portrait by the French artist Louise Elizabeth VigeeLe Brun. Prof Colin Jones said the painting caused a "scandal" at the time, with one critic arguing the expression was "particularly out of place in a mother".
But exposing the teeth would soon be all the rage, and Prof Jones attributed the breakthrough to dentistry. By 1787, a scientific approach to dental treatment had been published by a Parisian surgeon, and a boom in mouth-care products was under way.
Likening this to "a second French revolution", the professor added: "Paris became Europe's leading centre for production of toothbrushes and tooth-powders [and] spring-loaded porcelain dentures. At the same time, George Washington could manage only discoloured wooden dentures."
Which brings us back to David Smith's letter. Clearly, the Americans never forgot that early dental humiliation, during which, as an entire people, they had to keep their mouths closed in portrait sittings, despite the fact that this was now deeply unfashionable and that all of Europe, especially Paris, was laughing at them.
Small wonder that as the US became the major world power in orthodontics, it should exploit its advantage in the form of the all-weather, emotion-free expression derided by our correspondent as the "have-a-nice-day smile".
But even if this is fake, I would argue, it seems to have transforming potential for Americans, who are a famously happy people. According to latest OECD figures, the US still has more than half of the world's known reserves of optimism, even in a downturn.
Whereas, of course, and despite all our success, we in Ireland continue to be miserable.
So, in conclusion, I think a national smile day might be worth trying, so long as we don't set unrealistic spirit-raising targets. We could aim for a sardonic grin the first year, an expression of wry amusement the second, and build gradually. Who knows? In a few years time we could be laughing.
fmcnally@irish-times.ie
