The apple of your eye
Blog vol 6.44. The apple of your eye.
You learn something new everyday. How about the word “apple”? We at home have been reading about one of the greatest achievements of scholarship in the English language, A Dictionary of the English Language, by Samuel Johnson. It was published in April 1755, 2,300 pages in two volumes, a work that took nine years to complete.
Johnson wrote 42,773 definitions for English words, one of which was “apple”.
A'PPLE. n.s. [æppel, Saxon.]
1. The fruit of the apple tree. Tall thriving trees confess’d the fruitful mold;
The red’ning apple ripens here to gold.
Pope’s Odyssey.
2. The pupil of the eye. He instructed him; he kept him as the apple of his eye.
Deut. xxxii. 10.
Who knew, “apple” was another word for pupil (of the eye). Every good student of anatomy knows that the pupil is actually a hole or aperture in which light can enter the eye. Where did the word “apple” come from and how did it get associated with the pupil of the eye? Today we are all too familiar with the word as a symbol for a large technology company, Apple Inc.. It is really interesting how words are constantly changing, never static. Try as they might the two Steve’s, Wozniak and Jobs, will not be able stop the evolving of the word “apple” into whatever form it morphs into next.
At the time of Alfred the Great in the ninth century, the Anglo-Saxon language already used the word “arppel” to mean apple as the fruit and also the pupil of the eye. The pupil was thought to be a round ball, like an apple. The phrase “apple of His eye” is used in the King James version of the Bible (early 17th century) at least four times, but these are English translations, consequently Englishisms, and not necessarily present in the same way in the language of origin.
Another interesting use of “apple” to mean pupil appears in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (late 16th century). The pupil was the portal for the love potion that caused a whole big mix up. Oberon, the King of the Faeries says, "Flower of this purple dye, Hit with Cupid's archery, Sink in apple of his eye." (and let the fun begin!).
Apple, a seemingly innocuous word, one they did not teach us in optometry school.
Til next week,
The good doctor
