Monday, March 23, 2009

The apple of my eye

I was goofing off and looking at my roommate through a pretend telescope, when she suddenly announced, "I can see the apple of your eye!"

I froze. Had she read my mind? How did she know what I was thinking about?

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I can see this part of your eye," she said, pointing to her own eye.

"Ummmm, the apple of your eye is the thing you cherish most," I said, confused.

"But this expression comes from the name of this part of your eye."

"What part? The eyeball?"

"No, here. The center."

"The iris?"

"No, the white."

"That's called the 'sclera,'" I said, positive that we hadn't covered "apple" in biology class.

"It is just a name for the middle of the eye," she insisted. "We have it in Russian too."

"Okay, I just didn't understand because even if that is the origin, we don't actually use it that way. We use it to describe something that is the center of your life."

I went to look it up on Google. She was right.

According to this site, the phrase originally referred to "the central aperture of the eye." Sir Walter Scott used the phrase figuratively in "Old Mortality," 1816: "Poor Richard was to me as an eldest son, the apple of my eye."

And it is also, of course, found in the Bible.

In Deuteronomy, the Lord cares for His inheritance:
In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, (32:10)

Another example is Zechariah 2:8.

For this is what the LORD Almighty says: "After he has honored me and has sent me against the nations that have plundered you—for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye-

1 comment:

  1. Well....what do you know? I knew the first (focus of your love) meaning, but not that it meant - pupil (right?) What do you know?

    ReplyDelete

Just added word verification to reduce spam. Nothing personal!

You’re welcome to leave a link to your own blog here if it's relevant to this blog.

Please make sure that your comments are 1) relevant and 2) respectful (i.e. no cuss words, attacks on individuals).

Voices

 In the past month, it has been interesting to read the published thoughts of Russian friends as they've gotten their voice back upon es...