Goose bumps

Goose bumps are the bumps on a person's skin at the base of body hairs which may involuntarily develop when a person is tickled, cold or experiencing strong emotions such as fear, euphoria or sexual arousal. Goose bumps are the bumps on a person's skin at the base of body hairs which may involuntarily develop when a person is tickled, cold or experiencing strong emotions such as fear, euphoria or sexual arousal. The formation of goose bumps in humans under stress is considered to be a vestigial reflex; and its function in other apes is to raise the body's hair, and would have made human ancestors appear larger to scare off predators or to increase the amount of air trapped in the fur to make it more insulating. The reflex of producing goose bumps is known as piloerection or the pilomotor reflex. It occurs in many mammals; a prominent example is porcupines, which raise their quills when threatened, or sea otters when they encounter sharks or other predators. The phrase 'goose bumps' derives from the phenomenon's association with goose skin. Goose feathers grow from stores in the epidermis which resemble human hair follicles. When a goose's feathers are plucked, its skin has protrusions where the feathers were, and these bumps are what the human phenomenon resembles. It is not clear why the particular fowl, goose, was chosen in English, as most other birds share this same anatomical feature. Some authors have applied 'goosebumps' to the symptoms of sexually-transmitted diseases. 'Bitten by a Winchester goose' was a common euphemism for having contracted syphilis in the 16th century. 'Winchester geese' was the nickname for the prostitutes of Southern London, licensed by the Bishop of Winchester in the area around his London palace. This etymology does not explain why many other languages use the same bird as in English. 'Goose skin' is used in German (Gänsehaut), Swedish (gåshud), Danish and Norwegian (gåsehud), Icelandic (gæsahúð), Greek (χήνειο δέρμα), Italian (pelle d'oca), Russian (гусиная кожа), Ukrainian (гусяча шкіра), Polish (gęsia skórka), Czech (husí kůže), Slovak (husia koža), Latvian (zosāda) and Hungarian (libabőr). In other languages, the 'goose' may be replaced by other kinds of poultry. For instance, 'hen' is used in Spanish (piel de gallina), Portuguese (pele de galinha), Romanian (piele de găină), French (chair de poule), Catalan (pell de gallina), Slovene (kurja polt) and in Central Italy (ciccia di gallina). 'Chicken' is used in Dutch (kippenvel), Chinese (雞皮疙瘩, lit. 'lumps on chicken skin'), Finnish (kananliha), Estonian (kananahk), Afrikaans (hoendervleis) and Korean (닭살, daksal). In Hindi/Urdu it is called rongtey khade ho jaana. The equivalent Japanese term, 鳥肌, torihada, translates literally as 'bird skin'. In Arabic it is called kash'arirah (قشعريرة), while in Hebrew it is called 'duck skin' (עור ברווז). In Vietnamese, it is called da gà, which can be translated as 'chicken skin', or gai ốc, which can be translated as 'snail node'. All of the birds listed above are commonly consumed in the country of origin, so it may well be assumed that the term 'goose pimples' (also 'goose skin' and 'goose flesh', c.1785 and 1810) and all other related terms in other languages came into being merely due to the visual similarity of the bird's plucked skin and the human skin phenomenon, used to describe the sensation in a way that is readily familiar. The same effect is manifested in the root word horror in English, which is derived from Latin horrere, which means 'to bristle', and 'be horrified', because of the accompanying hair reaction. Goose bumps are created when tiny muscles at the base of each hair, known as arrector pili muscles, contract and pull the hair erect. The reflex is started by the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for many fight-or-flight responses. The muscle cells connected to the hair follicle have been visualized by actin immunofluorescence.