Say cheese

SEELEY LAKE – When taking group portraits, a photographer often gets everyone to smile at the same time by prompting them: "Say cheese!" But what does cheese have to do with pictures or smiles?

There is no connection between photography and compressed milk curds but pronouncing the double long "e" of "cheese" requires drawing back the lips and turning the corners of the mouth upward. In other words, smiling.

Just who decided the word should be "cheese" instead of "bees" or "trees" or "peas" is unknown. But a 1943 article in a Texas newspaper, The Big Spring Herald, gives a hint as to how the i...