Kissing Kidding Trivia Quiz

Answer: Philematology

It's hard to believe that there's a science for kissing to begin with, but this is the case. Kissing is the art - or otherwise - of pressing one's lips against the lips of another in a romantic or passionate or friendly manner. There is also kissing on the cheeks, of course, and other areas of the human body, and kissing for various other reasons, but kissing is usually associated with a good old-fashioned smack on the lips. Even Charles Darwin studied the science of philematology in his work, presumably right before he peeled a banana.

The word kiss derives from the old Germanic English which used the words kuss or kussijanan to describe same. Apparently that was based on the sound made when kissing, which is decidedly odd. I tried saying kussijanan while kissing someone and spat all over them. Very romantic.

Answer: Finger tips

They're generally very sensitive, in fact, and can detect the slightest sensation. When kissing another person, this is supposed to bring about a pleasurable sensation upon the lips and stimulate various emotions in the brain, depending on the purpose of the kiss, of course. There's the religious kiss for example, or the kiss of friendship, or the kiss between a parent and child. Kissing has as many nuances as coughing. Would you like to hear a perfectly lovely description of a romantic kiss? This is from the love story "Daphnis and Chloe", written way back in the second century AD by one Longus, and is about the effect a kiss from a girl has on a man. It goes as follows:

"Ye gods, what are my feelings. Her lips are softer than the rose's leaf, her mouth is sweet as honey, and her kiss inflicts on me more pain than a bee's sting. I have often kissed my kids, I have often kissed my lambs, but never have I known aught like this. My pulse is beating fast, my heart throbs, it is as if I were about to suffocate, yet, nevertheless, I want to have another kiss. Strange, never-suspected pain! Has Chloe, I wonder, drunk some poisonous draught ere she kissed me? How comes it that she herself has not died of it?"

Answer: True

How peculiar that someone thought to count this in the first place, but ah well. The study was conducted in Ruhr University in Germany. Some scientists believe that this peculiarity has something to do with how we are positioned in the womb before birth. What does this mean, though, if we are positioned feet first? Interesting piece of information: kissing mouth to mouth is thought to have originated in India.

This is based on written text from more than two thousands years ago in that country. Yet that doesn't mean, without dispute, that kissing mouth to mouth originated in India.

It just means that someone wrote down a description of it at that time. Thought to be written by Vyasa, this description is found in the famous poem "Mahabharata".

Answer: His kiss ruptured her eardrum

The girl was taken to a hospital in the southern Quandong province with a ruptured eardrum. This was caused from the suction power of her boyfriend's passionate kissing. Her hearing returned in a couple of months, and there is no truth to the rumour that every time she saw her boyfriend after that, she only ever shook his hand. What is true, however, is that this incident led to Chinese doctors issuing the warning that when kissing, one should proceed with caution.

Answer: Pucker

Because this muscle allows the lips to pucker, it is commonly referred to as the kissing muscle. It is part of a group of muscles found, where else, in the mouth area around the lips. It is also the muscle which allows musicians to play instruments which require lip power.

A kiss requiring a pucker uses only two of these muscles. The much more sloppy French kiss uses some thirty-four face muscles. There's a lot to be said for the dry peck. So much healthier. But let us be romantic about this. Many ancient cultures believed that when kissing mouth to mouth, the souls of the two lovers were mingled. Along with their saliva.

Answer: Whether a person was bottle or breast fed as an infant

Scholars, not always known for being correct, also suggest that the act of kissing itself may have originated millennia ago when human mothers used to chew up food to a soft mush before giving it to their children to consume, in an act similar to that of other parent animals. Oh, what a way to kill the loveliness of the act: associate it with blobs of masticated morsels.

Some scientists also think that kissing forms bonds between people or animals because, when done on the mouth, it allows the transfer of various chemicals and salts.

For example, when carrying out tests to follow up on this theory, researchers report that when the glands responsible for producing these properties were removed from birds (a very cruel thing to do), and they no longer produced those chemicals, their mates abandoned them. That's one for the birds.

Answer: Teeth

Apparently, when getting ready to swoop in for a romantic kiss, the flow of saliva increases in the mouth and acts as an agent to clean plaque off the teeth. Eewww, that is such a slobbery image. This one, that describes another physiological reaction to a kiss, is much, much nicer. Psychologist William Cane notes in his work "The Art of Kissing" (1991) that it's quite easy to tell when two people are in love, for "...they cannot conceal their inner excitement. Men will give themselves away by a certain excited trembling in the muscles of the lower jaw upon seeing their beloved. Women will often turn pale immediately of seeing their lover and then get slightly red in the face as their sweetheart draws near...". I plan to closely examine the jaws of any man I know in future, just in case I don't miss out on any potential romance.

Answer: In case the ladies accidentally bit off their tongues

Oh what piffle. As recorded in William Cane's book "The Art of Kissing" (1991), this instruction was found recorded in an ancient Japanese manuscript. It doesn't give the date of the manuscript, but the instructions are quite specific. Japanese men were warned not to deeply kiss their partners during the female's height of passion, in case the ladies accidentally chomped down on the gentlemen's tongues and severed them. What an image - but one simply can't resist remarking, "In your dreams, boys". Everyone knows, if one were to believe all the silly love-making scenes shown in the movies now, that women are far too busy screaming and turning somersaults during this time to be bothered with a quick snack.

Answer: Lepers

Carried out by "medieval ascetics and religious nobility", I cannot laugh at this in any way at all, and think instead that it was a diabolical and extremely cruel thing to do. Not only did they totally disregard the feelings of the people who were suffering from this terrible illness, they made them feel as a loathsome thing, and that kissing them was an act of repulsion. All that to prove some fashionable - fashionable, if you please - notion of false Christian humility.

It was despicable. This can be found in the 2005 work "Kissing Christians: Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient Church" by Michael Philip Penn.

Answer: A donkey

Pliny the Elder was a prolific author, philosopher, naturalist, and navy and army commander in Ancient Rome. He lived from 23-79 AD and died by his own hand. I do believe I can safely say I have indeed kissed - well almost - the nostrils of many a donkey in my time, but never to cure a common cold. How on earth do people come up with their weird cures?