Do we know whether our facial expressions have changed significantly in the last few hundred years?

by [deleted]

If I rolled my eyes to Thomas Jefferson, would he know what I meant? What about the "give me a break" look? Sexy eyes?

ellipsisoverload

There are some I can think of that are still the same, at least in English settled countries, such as sighing... Shakespeare mentioned sighs in a few plays to indicate both frustration and longing, much as its still used... I think Much Ado About Nothing is the most famous example... The same goes for Lady Audley's Secret from 1862, which I just happened to finish reading, and where characters sigh frequently...

This article from Slate seems to say that eye rolling, particularly for contempt / boredom, is a new thing, and it used to be more about lust:

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/explainer/2013/01/eye_rolling_why_do_people_roll_their_eyes_when_they_re_annoyed.html

Although this overused gif shows that that can still be the case, this google-graph from the Slate article is interesting, and shows a large increase in usage from the '30s...

Sifting though a few of those earlier results, many seem to mean looking around, and it can be a little hard to gauge what they actually mean, but it doesn't seem to be the modern meaning...

Here's a rather funny excerpt from Senate questioning from the 1870s, where they ask for clarification on what eye rolling means...