I mean, what do you ask the person to say to guarantee a smile? Cheeeeeese makes sense, but *“queso” * somehow doesn’t have the same desired effect!
When I grew up in a french-speaking country, you were asked just to smile.
In Argentina: Normally Whiskey, sometimes you use the more effective but scatological “Sifilis!”.
In China, Mandarin speakers say “qie zi,” which means, “eggplant!”
In Esperanto, we say ‘ĝis!’ which is pronounced ‘jeess’ and means ‘bye!’. The choice of word is all about making the ‘eee’ sound, which pretty much forces something resembling a smile.
It’s usually whiskey in Panama too.
In Norway, sometimes “iiiiiiiis” (is, ice cream) or “smiiiiiiiiiil” (smil, meaning smile). I’ve even heard the English word “cheese” being used, since ‘everybody knows’ from American and British movies and TV shows that that’s what you’re supposed to say in English.
In Japanese there are a bunch of them. “Chiizu!” ‘Cheese!’ has become pretty popular but it has the problem of ending in a /u/ sound which creates strangely puckered lips amongst the smiles. “san, ni, ichi” is also popular, just a ‘3, 2, 1’ countdown. It has the advantage of consisting of vowel sounds that all, more or less, create smiles. “Wiisu” a slangish salutation used by a lot of younger folk, is sometimes used as well.
My personal favorite, even though it makes me sound older than I am when I say it, is to have the cameraman say “Ichi tasu ichi wa?” ‘One plus one is?’ to which everyone answers “NI!” ‘Two!’
ETA: It is also common for the cameraman to simply say “Hai, chiizu!” for ‘OK, cheese!’ And those getting their picture taken reply only by smiling and posing, without any verbal response.
In Holland, we say cheese. Or something to the effect of ‘smile, bastards’.
In Holland it has also happens that people say : say kaas which is the translation of cheese but hasn’t got the same effect. I guess it refers to the english (people don’t actually say kaas, because it would leave them open mouthed…)
“In Esperanto, we say”? I’ve never heard those words uttered before. Where do people actually speak Esperanto, besides the dinner tables of the people who “invented” it?
In india, it is smile please in various languages !
In Sweden it is “omelette”.
There are Esperantists all over the world.
In response to the OP’s query: In South Korea, 치즈 (chee-juh/‘cheese’) or 김치 (kimchi) are quite popular.
Is “cheese” a corruption of “cheers”?
In Russian, usually people are just asked to smile.
There is a Soviet joke, though, that goes “Never say ‘cheese’ when you’re taking a photograph, or else everyone will come running!”
I didn’t say it was a very funny joke.
Well, you had to be there.
Cheers,
bcg
'Luton!
In Bulgarian, people say “zele!”, which means cabbage. I don’t think it really has the desired effect, personally.
It should come as no surprise that there is a Wikipedia article on this subject.