There is an apparently successful book called Here Come the Tickle Bugs! by Uncle Sillyhead III. Its audience is among three-and-a-half-year-olds. ‘When children are silly, no kisses or hugs. Only tickles from the Tickle Bugs!’ At this point the adult reading the story is meant to tickle the child. I can see the attraction, from the child’s point of view. Veronica loved being tickled, for a bit. Sometimes, though, it made her feel sick. My husband says that in 1897 a couple of American psychologists called G. Stanley Hall and Arthur Allin came up with a distinction between two kinds of tickling, knismesis and gargalesis. Knismesis is the light tickling of the skin by insects and the like, so it is odd that gargalesis, the heavier kind of tickling that provokes laughter, should be attributed by Uncle Sillyhead III to the Tickle Bugs. I wonder if his findings have been peer-reviewed.
Perhaps tickling is akin to the startle reflex. There is the same semi-voluntary reaction to an external stimulus. No one can either tickle himself or startle himself. This is where physiology meets culture. In 1884 Georges Gilles de la Tourette studied reports of three syndromes: latah, from Malaya, in which sufferers experience a severe startle reaction, accompanied by imitative behaviour, automatic obedience (in such things as throwing a knife) and coprolalia; myriachit, from Siberia, with identical phenomena; and something similar among the Jumping Frenchmen of Maine. My husband tells me of an entertaining website, Wrong Diagnosis, which says that if you think you are suffering from Jumping Frenchmen of Maine syndrome, you might have diabetic neuropathy.
None of this is explored on the Tickle Bugs website. Instead a competition has been launched there to find a replacement for the saying ‘Kill two birds with one stone’ on the grounds that ‘it’s not very nice’. Many responses come from California. Most are digustingly twee, like remarks by Madeline Bassett: ‘Bless two birds with one lotus’, ‘Brighten two hearts with one smile’, ‘Make two wishes upon one star’, ‘Solve two problems with one friend.’ Then a realistic note of childish greed is introduced by Wojtek from Lubljana: ‘Win two prizes with one lot.’ Avery, from no fixed abode, suggests the interesting: ‘Throw one bone at two dogs chasing you.’ Would that work? Perhaps they’d fight, and you could stop running and watch them — even get Wojtek to put a bet on the winner. But then Jeremy from Nashville posted his suggestion: ‘Dump two turds with one flush.’ Someone always has to spoil it.
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