# Do you frown with your eyebrows?!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-frown-with-your-eyebrows/123596>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 12, 2002, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-frown-with-your-eyebrows/123596 "2002-08-12T21:06:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![CWR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@CWR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CWR)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2002, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-frown-with-your-eyebrows/123596/1 "2002-08-12T21:06:16Z")

</div>

I have an on-going arguement with a friend about the correct use of the term “frown” and I’m hoping to get some of the brilliant members here to back me up.

Lemme start out by typing that I’m an animator, and my friend is the writer/creator of the cartoon. This arguement started one day when he told me to have the character “frown”. Of course, I then made his little mouth go from ‘happy’🙂 to sad ☹ .

When he came back, he got very irrate and said “No! He’s supposed to be frowning!” I pointed out that I had indeed changed the characters mouth into a frown. This is when things got ugly.

My friend was adamant that a ‘frown’ involved ONLY the eyebrows being turned downward. I scoffed and said "What about the saying,‘turn your frown upside-down’. Then dictionaries were grabbed, but to my amazement, all the dictionaries we could find all supported HIS definition: Frown, to furrow one’s brows in displeasure.

Well, then I asked anyone I could find, and the conventional wisdom seemed to believe that a frown was made with the mouth.

Even after doing an archive search here, I found that even Cecil used the term frown for the mouth:

(from the ‘origin of the smiley face’ archive)  
“Harvey got the assignment from the company’s promotions director, Joy Young, who wanted a smile button for a morale boosting campaign ordered up by her boss. Harvey, not a man to waste ink, initially drew just the smile. Pondering the result, he realized that if you turned the button upside down, it became … a frown!”

I am now at a loss, and in very close danger of losing this bet with my friend. Can ANYONE find any information to help back up my claim? Or am I to be done in my Oxford and Webster?!?

Frowning with my mouth,  
CWR

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2002, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-frown-with-your-eyebrows/123596/2 "2002-08-13T04:10:14Z")

</div>

I frown with both.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Fred](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/db5fbb/32.png) [@Fred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fred)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2002, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-frown-with-your-eyebrows/123596/3 "2002-08-13T04:57:25Z")

</div>

Since I can’t conciously make my mouth into an unhappy face I can’t really tell you. I do, however, frown with my eyebrows.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2002, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-frown-with-your-eyebrows/123596/4 "2002-08-13T05:44:53Z")

</div>

I tend to frown with my whole face: mouth, eyebrows, pinched nostrils, the whole nine yards. This leaves no doubt in anyone’s mind that they are indeed in DEEP shit.