Sardonismo/sonrisa sardónica

• La «sonrisa sardónica» es una condición médica producida por el tétanos, donde los músculos de la cara se contraen y el paciente enseña los dientes como sonriendo. Esta respuesta también la puede producir el envenenamiento con estricnina.

Y algo más completo en lengua inglesa...........

The etymology of sardonicism as both a word and concept is uncertain, but it appears to stem from the name for the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. The Byzantine Greek Suda traces its earliest roots to the notion of grinning (Greek: sairō) in the face of danger, or curling one's lips back at evil.^[4] One explanation for the later alteration to its more familiar form and connection to laughter (supported by the Oxford English Dictionary) appears to stem from an ancient belief that ingesting the sardonion plant from Sardinia (Greek: Sardō) would result in convulsions resembling laughter and, ultimately, death.^[5] In Theory and History of Folklore, Vladimir Propp discusses alleged examples of ritual laughter accompanying death and killing, all involving groups. These he characterized as sardonic laughter.^[6]

Among the very ancient people of Sardinia, who were called Sardi or Sardoni, it was customary to kill old people. While killing their old people, the Sardi laughed loudly. This is the origin of notorious sardonic laughter (Eugen Fehrle, 1930), now meaning cruel, malicious laughter. In light of our findings things begin to look different. Laughter accompanies the passage from death to life; it creates life and accompanies birth. Consequently, laughter accompanying killing transforms death into a new birth, nullifies murder as such, and is an act of piety that transforms death into a new life.^[7]

A root form may first appear in Homer's Odyssey as the Ancient Greek sardánios, for scornful laughter.^[8] From the Greek: sardónios evolved the Latin: sardonius, thence the French: sardonique, and ultimately the familiar English adjectival form, sardonic