Turn a Blind Eye
I recently watched a video where the presenter was complaining about idioms. He seemed to be distraught at the fact that idioms exist. If you have seen my other posts here, you probably know I have the opposite opinion. I think they are very interesting and learning about them can show us a bit about our history and how languages work.
One of the idioms he took issue with was to turn a blind eye. Turning a blind eye means to willfully ignore something. Usually, there is something to be gained by ignoring information.
Example: The police officer didn’t want to arrest the poor girl. So, when she stole the loaf of bread, he turned a blind eye.
The YouTube presenter, Domics, complained that a person can only be blind or not blind and that turning would have no effect. The presenter didn’t acknowledge that someone can be blind in one eye. And that is how this story starts.
Origins
There is a popular story about this idiom, and it involves our friend, Admiral Horatio Nelson. If that name sounds familiar, it is because he was the subject of another idiom we covered, in a pickle. Nelson was blind in one eye from an injury he suffered early in his career. That didn’t stop him from moving up the ranks and becoming an admiral.
During the battle of Copenhagen (1801), Nelson was involved in an attack on the Danish / Norwegian enemy. Another admiral, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, ordered Nelson to stop fighting by using signal flags. One of Nelson’s crewmembers alerted him to the flags. But Nelson was brave and wanted to ignore the signals to continue with the attack. So, he put the telescope up to his blind eye. Since this eye was blind, he never technically received the message to stop fighting.
While a lot of sources use the Nelson story, the phrase turn a blind eye had already been around before 1801. A year prior (in 1800), turning a blind eye was used in reference to a glass eye. That is to say, the blind eye was a glass eye: “It is lucky for the poor man he has a blind eye to turn to her.”
The phrase is a shortened version of to turn the deaf ear and the blind eye. The longer phrase can be found in Walking by Faith by John Norris (1749). Norris uses the phrase to discourage people from hedonism: “…to turn the deaf ear, and the blind eye to all those pomps and vanities of the world…”
Even if Nelson was not origin of the phrase, his story is memorable and has lasted a long time. Idioms are fun and interesting. If you agree and want to see more, check out my other posts on Facebook or my website, esltoybox.com.
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Reference:
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/turn-a-blind-eye.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_a_blind_eye
https://wordhistories.net/2017/08/15/turn-blind-eye-origin/