Why Do We Say Cheese?

This page is about the photo phrase, not the Roblox park. The park guide is on the home page.

Long exposures in the nineteenth century rewarded a still face, and "say prunes" was used to shrink the mouth. When cameras got faster, a smile became normal. The vowel in cheese pulls the corners of the mouth up. The Phrase Finder and Word Smarts both cite The Big Spring Daily Herald in October 1943 for a printed instruction to say cheese. That supports a dated usage, rather than a claim to the phrase's invention.

The table follows Mama Lisa's 2018 compilation. Its France and Spain entries include reader contributions; much of the longer list explicitly follows Wikipedia, so those copies are counted as one evidence chain, not two independent sources. These are examples people report using, not nationwide rules. The NASA still of Conrad and Cooper after Gemini 5 is the picture often paired with this story. It is a landing photo, not a diagram of the vowel.

The Roblox ending that uses the spoken word is a different page: Say Cheese ending.