Everybody knows that you don’t really grow wise by having wisdom teeth. They are just some teeth which will grow when you reach a certain age, sometime near your early 20s or so. I keep wondering why nobody calls them “old-age teeth” or “after-teen teeth”, at least.
After looking at the small x-ray film, the dentist told me that my “wisdom” tooth is growing near horizontally rather than vertically. “A lot of people get this problem, and you might have to surgically remove it when it finally grows out.” It kept me thinking, since a lot of people encounter this problem, and obviously it’s painful, shouldn’t we be calling them “pain-in-the-toot teeth” rather than wisdom teeth?
Well, for most people(in the developed and developing countries, at least), life is more or less hehe-haha all the way from childhood to teenage years. Perhaps these pain-in-the-toot teeth are one of the ways Nature teaches us a lesson… as if the other teeth biting your lips when you are eating is not enough… What is the lesson, you may ask. Nobody sums it up better than Monty Python in Life of Brian: Life’s a piece of shit, when you look at it.
If you think I am trying to name those teeth “shitty-life teeth”, then you are somewhat correct, but not precisely. Part of growing up is learning that there are a lot of problems that we will have to face in our lives. Part of growing wise is knowing this simple phrase (also from Life of Brian): “Always look on the bright side of life”! Perhaps the person who named them “wisdom teeth” had all his(or her) wisdom teeth growing sideways.
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#1 by Zilus on June 10, 2008 - 2:39 am
some extras:
The below extract is quoted from http://www.oralsurgerycare.com/wisdomteeth.html
Why are they called wisdom teeth?
“The last teeth to develop and erupt into the jaws are called the third molars. Third molars usually erupt in the late teen years, which coincides with passage into adulthood and is referred to by some as the age of wisdom; hence “wisdom teeth”. Unfortunately, the wisdom teeth are now usually trying to erupt into a jaw that is too small.
Wisdom teeth used to serve a useful purpose, but are now considered vestigial organs. A vestige is a degenerative or imperfectly formed organ or structure having little or no utility, but in the earlier stage of development of a species performed a useful function.” #
Hope that, through evolution, wisdom teeth either become smaller (to fit the jaw =P) or become a useful part of the jaw bone…
argh! for now its still our frustratingly ‘unwise’ teeth!
(i just happened to drop by whatthetoot.com and was surprised that there’re quite some changes =P)