To Sleep, Perchance to Snore

Such is my reputation for pondering matters of profoundest import that a helpful friend suggested I devote this week’s musings to Women Who Snore.

This was a female friend, mind you. She had previously labored under the misapprehension that snoring was strictly a design flaw in the human male’s otorhinolaryngological system. Then she shared a hotel room with other women. She did not sleep well. Ergo, her column idea.

I drew myself up to my full though steadily diminishing height and assured her that such a topic was entirely beneath my steadily diminishing dignity. My subject, I declared, was nothing less than la condition humaine; my goal, to leave a wake, to change, as a result of my passage through this world, the way the water laps at the shore.

Besides, I do not know any women who snore.

Well, there’s…no, no, no, I am not going to change the way the water laps at the snore — I mean, shore — by stooping to snore-shaming.

But if I were to spew 800 or so words on the subject of snoring I would tell the story of a colleague who, harkening to a stertorous sleeper in his large lecture class, held his lapel microphone under the snoozer’s schnoz, thus amplifying the snores to such a degree that the sleeper, indeed sleepers for miles around, were jolted into consciousness.

Did you know, by the way, that there are villages in Norfolk, England, called Little Snoring and Great Snoring? Here is what I learned about Little Snoring from Wikipedia:

“It was the king’s land with the main landholders being William de Warenne and Peter de Valognes and his main tenant is said to be Ralph.”

Who, no doubt, snored.

(I am thinking, in this regard, of the old animated Maypo cereal commercials in which Marky, a small boy in a big cowboy hat, walks in on the snoring occupant of a sofa.

“I wonder who’s sleeping in the living room,” muses Marky. “It’s Uncle Ralph! Wake up, you old rattlesnake!”

The old rattlesnake stirs but only fully awakens when he realizes that Marky is fixing some Maypo in his Homburg hat.)

Further research revealed that the Ralph of Little Snoring fame was Sir Ralph Shelton, lord of the manor, who, when he sold Great Snoring in 1611, is reported to have said, “I can sleep without Snoring.”

Witty guy, Sir Ralph.

But back to “the vibration of respiratory structures and the resulting sound due to obstructed air movement during breathing while sleeping.” Here is what the writer Sloane Crosley says about it:

“They say it’s not the snoring itself but those anxiety-packed moments in between snorts. It’s the waiting for the nasal passages of the person lying beside you to strike again. And strike it always does. In the dark, almost against your will, you produce that special glare reserved for people who cannot control their own behavior.”

This brings us to the question of whether a snort is to a snore as a wink is to a blink — that is, the first is voluntary, the second involuntary. Well, not quite, since a surprised laugh can sometimes find expression as a snort.

(Mornings when I was a lad, my dad used to pour me a glass of OJ and say, in a falling-down-drunk’s voice, “Have a snort.” But that, as with cokeheads and their cocaine, was different.)

My research into all things otorhinolaryngological — I love that word — led me to this irresistible headline in Sky News: “Snoring Ecuadorian Wins Siesta Competition”

The contest was held in Madrid as part of efforts to save the siesta from creeping workaholism. The contest judge awarded bonus points for “snoring, odd sleeping positions and striking pyjamas.”

If you’re wondering how loud a snore can get, in 1949 The New York Times reported snores that came in at 69 decibels, which “roughly equals a lion’s roar or ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ played as a tuba solo.”

The Times story offered this extreme cure from the previous century: Place a wedge-shaped piece of soap in the snorer’s mouth. The log sawyer will “undergo temporary strangulation, and then sit up and make theological remarks.”

Worth a shot.

The good news for Americans who snore (24 percent of men, 14 percent of women, according to one study) in this more enlightened age is that there are many remedies, including sprays, strips, clips, straps and, if you’re a cartoon character, a log in a thought balloon that once sawn through, bonks you on the head.

Or how about this simple solution: Play the didgeridoo.

As for me: Listening to Wolf Blitzer’s voice while watching coverage of the Iowa caucuses on Monday night made me snore. Listening to Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio made me snort.