Talk:apple of someone's eye

Tea room discussion
I wonder if we could reach a consensus? All entries should be either someone's or somebody's, but not both, or mixed at random. I personally vote now for someone's, and eliminate (move) all the somebody's entries. -- A LGRIF  talk 15:06, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Re-reading this... I meant to say "one's" This entry should be redirected the other way, shouldn't it? If I enter apple of one's eye it redirects to the "somebody's" entry. What exactly is the consensus? -- A LGRIF  talk 11:52, 22 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I think there might be a meaningful difference between "one's" and either of the others in some uses in our headwords. There are cases where "one's" makes it clear that there is a restriction on the possessive used in the expression. For example, we would not substitute "mind someone's manners" for "mind one's manners" in the normal idiomatic use of that expression. "Someone's" doesn't put the appropriate limit on the pronoun: that minder is minding his own manners. I would argue that it is misleading to imply the restriction on the possessive in "apple of someone's eye". "X is the apple of Y's eye" with the choice of X or Y implying no grammatical restriction on the other. DCDuring TALK 12:45, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

RFV discussion: March 2019
Rfv-sense: "The eyeball. in Ch1908 as "apple of the eye"" DTLHS (talk) 03:47, 4 March 2019 (UTC)


 * (Curiously I also recently found a Caribbean sense of eyeball that means the figurative sense of "apple of the eye", i.e. a favourite.) Equinox ◑ 19:05, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
 * This argues that the use of the phrase in Deuteronomy actually refers to the pupil, which is close....And again here it is argued that the apple of the eye is the pupil. Kiwima (talk) 20:50, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
 * A complication is that "apple of the eye" is currently a redirect to "apple of someone's eye"; the former clearly has a sense referring to the pupil and/or iris, the latter probably doesn't. The sense "pupil" is or seems used here:  . Less clear:     ←₰-→  Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  11:05, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The Hebrew is definitely the pupil (apparently diminutive of ) and/or . Both refer to the idea of a small person, which should be familiar from the etymology of pupil. The apple of the eye metaphor is of a smaller ball within the eyeball, with a couple of references talking like eyeball might sometimes have referred to the pupil, rather than the whole eye- but those are mentions. They do, however, make make things much more ambiguous. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:48, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Eye + apple is the literal translation of and, so there may be some basis for this. DonnanZ (talk) 10:17, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Also 🇨🇬. DonnanZ (talk) 10:30, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * And, which has the rag, tag and bobtail. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  11:05, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Also 🇨🇬. The German goes back to Middle High German and Old High German, so there could be a connection to Middle Low German here, who knows? DonnanZ (talk) 11:30, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Budge's Egyptian dictionary defines benn-t as "some ball-shaped object, ball, eye-ball, apple of the eye". Khemehekis (talk) 09:41, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * In middle English times, there was both and, both meaning "eyeball" but which could also be used figuratively to mean "something highly valued" (which one's eyeballs are sure to be). In Modern English there is also  which can mean "eyeball", "pupil", or "someone or something highly cherished". Leasnam (talk) 06:01, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

RFV-resolved. Definition moved to. Kiwima (talk) 21:22, 14 March 2019 (UTC)