the.com/mew

Jawline folk magic: press your tongue up and wait for cheekbones to arrive.

means The small sound a cat makes, and—by weird internet extension—the name of a tongue-posture trend claiming it'll chisel your face.

from 'Mew' started as pure sound-mimicry, echoing the thin cry of a cat (English had 'mewen' for this back in medieval times, and languages worldwide have their own near-identical version, because cats sound like cats everywhere). The jawline sense is a 20th-century borrowing of a surname: British orthodontist John Mew, who promoted tongue-posture theories about facial development. His ideas got picked up, renamed 'mewing' after him, and went viral — so the word now lives a double life: one meaning inherited from a cat's throat, the other from a dentist's business card.

origin
named after orthodontist John Mew
claim
promises sharper jaw via tongue posture
evidence
no peer-reviewed proof it reshapes bone
side effect
made teenagers obsessed with their tongues
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