A Note on Pandiculation and Other Rarely Observed Phenomena
The act of stretching and yawning simultaneously—pandiculation, to give it its proper name—is a phenomenon common to humans and many other vertebrates. Yet despite its ubiquity, it remains curiously understudied. One might reasonably ask why this should be so. Is it perhaps because we tend to overlook the quotidian in favor of the exotic? Or is there something about pandiculation itself that resists scholarly attention?
I was reminded of this curious oversight last week while reading an otherwise excellent monograph on psychosomatic manifestations in Victorian literature. The author, in discussing the representation of bodily responses to emotional states in George Eliot’s Middlemarch, mentions Casaubon’s “habitual gestures of discomfort” but fails to note the repeated references to his stretching and yawning—his pandiculation, if you will—during his disastrous honeymoon in Rome.
This omission struck me as particularly unfortunate given the rich symbolic resonance of pandiculation in the novel. Casaubon’s stretching and yawning is not merely a physical response to fatigue but a manifestation of his spiritual emptiness, his inability to engage meaningfully with either the art and history surrounding him or, more poignantly, with his young bride.
But I digress. My purpose here is not to offer yet another reading of Middlemarch (though I confess the temptation is always present), but rather to call attention to the neglected vocabulary of everyday bodily phenomena. Why, for instance, do we lack a common word for the sensation of having something caught between one’s teeth? Or for the peculiar tingling that occurs when a limb is “waking up” after having fallen asleep?
The Germans, with their talent for lexical invention, have given us Backpfeifengesicht (“a face that cries out for a slap”) and Torschlusspanik (“the fear that time is running out to act, particularly in regard to marriage”), but even they have not, to my knowledge, coined terms for these common experiences.
Perhaps the readers of this blog might suggest some candidates. Until then, I shall continue to pandiculate in linguistic solitude, stretching for words that do not yet exist.
Comments (3):
Eliot's characterization of Casaubon through physical gestures is indeed masterful. His pandiculation contrasts sharply with Dorothea's alert engagement with Rome, doesn't it? Another bodily phenomenon without a proper name: that moment when you're about to sneeze but then don't.
The Japanese have "age-otori" – looking worse after a haircut. We definitely need English equivalents for these everyday phenomena. Perhaps "interdenticulation" for having something caught between teeth?
Dr. M, your posts always make me reach for the dictionary! I had to look up "pandiculation" and now I can't stop using it. My cat is the grand champion of pandiculation, especially around 5am when he wants breakfast.