Gurning

[Michael Quinion]

Philip Cleary wrote:

> "Contestants are required to wear a horse collar while they pull
> their best grotesque and extraordinary faces." That, I take it, is
> a description of "gurning." Can anyone tell me more about this
> wonderful word and its etymology?

>From <http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-gur1.htm>:

This British term - much better known in Britain and Commonwealth
countries than in the US - has at times been applied to the pulling
of faces as a competitive activity. A surviving example is that in
the Lake District, where the Egremont Crab-Apple Fair has an annual
contest, which they call the World Championship Gurning Competition
and which they say dates back to 1266. There is also an Australian
national competition that I know of, and there may be others, too.

At one time, such face-pulling contests were a common entertainment
at fairs and gatherings around Britain (before the days of radio
and television you had to get your fun where you could). The rules
at Egremont are simple: competitors put their heads through a horse
collar and then have a set time in which to contort their faces
into the most gruesome, scary or daft expressions possible. False
teeth may be left in or taken out, or even turned upside down if
desired. The winner is the person who gets the most audience
applause.

The word seems to have been originally Scottish, in the form
'girn', which - appropriately enough - may have been a contorted
form of 'grin'. It has had several meanings, of which the oldest -
from medieval times - is still current in Scots and Irish dialect,
and which is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as: "to show
the teeth in rage, pain, disappointment, etc; to snarl as a dog; to
complain persistently; to be fretful or peevish". These days only
the losers in the World Championship Gurning Competition do much of
that.

> And, while we're on the subject, is "to pull a face" the UK
> equivalent of the US "to make a face"?

Yes.


--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
E-mail: <TheEditor at worldwidewords.org>
Web: <http://www.worldwidewords.org/>