Muscles to Smile

I wanted to quote Prairie Home Companion: It takes 41 muscles to smile, but only 4 to give them the finger.   It was a new twist on the common expression that it takes more muscles to smile than to frown and I wanted to cite the correct number of muscles.

When I turned to the web for an answer I found that the answer is actually unknown (snopes.com).    Answers.com got David H. Song of University of Chicago Hospitals to enumerate the number of muscles as 12 to smile and 11 to frown.   (In counting the muscles ("A genuine smile takes two muscles to crinkle the eyes, two to pull up the lip corners and nose, two to elevate the mouth angle, and two to pull the mouth corners sideways. Total smile: 12.")  I come up with 8.  Perhaps "lips and nose" meant two muscles each.)

The Answers.com article also pointed to the ability of human's to distinguish sincere smiles by the recognizing the small but characteristic changes to the eyes and nose in a real smile.

Snopes provided a jibe from Auburn's basketball coach, Sonny Smith, at his rival, Wimp Sanderson: Sanderson's smile led Smith to conclude that Sanderson was suffering from muscle fatigue.

My only contribution to the number of muscles to frown vs the number of muscles to smile literature is this:  "Frown: consider it an aerobic workout for your face."