Buzz
When someone cries to feign sorrow or sympathy, we refer to it as shedding 'crocodile tears.' But how did we associate these false displays of emotion with these toothy creatures?
The phrase likely gained popularity in the 14th century after the publication of the bestselling memoir, The Voyage and Travel of Sir John Mandeville, which described serpents that weep while devouring their human prey:
In that country and by all Inde be great plenty of cockodrills, that is a manner of a long serpent, as I have said before. And in the night they dwell in the water, and on the day upon the land, in rocks and in caves. And they eat no meat in all the winter, but they lie as in a dream, as do the serpents. These serpents slay men, and they eat them weeping; and when they eat they move the over jaw, and not the nether jaw, and they have no tongue.
Over the years, crocodiles crying has come to symbolize hollow remorse. The phrase has appeared in fables to promote true repentance, in Shakespeare’s works to depict feigned sorrow, and more recently, in media as a mockery of tearful politicians or murder suspects.
In 2007, University of Florida zoologist Kent Vliet demonstrated that crocodiles do indeed shed tears while eating. However, because they feed in the water, making it challenging to observe their tearful moments, he instead studied their relatives—caimans and alligators, who may feed on land. Of the seven filmed at a Florida alligator park, five shed tears before, during, and after their meals.
Vliet theorizes that the animals’ vigorous jaw movements force air through their sinuses, causing tears to flow into their eyes. Not only do their eyes water, but they can froth and bubble, as Vliet observed at the alligator park, where some even shed tears in anticipation of their meals of chicks, quail, and feed biscuits.
Vliet was tasked by UCLA neurologist Malcolm Shaner to investigate the science behind the 'crocodilian metaphor.' Shaner was researching a condition in which some facial palsy sufferers cry while chewing. This condition, referred to by doctors as 'crocodile tears,' had been noted by a Russian scientist in the 1920s, who suggested that such facial weakness could lead to the emergence of "older, possibly crocodilian neurological pathways" in humans, as Vliet described.
