¡Four eyes!... are better than two

It amazes me how, given a change of a few decades, what was once popular, fades, and what was once abhorred, is accepted.  When I was a child in the 1980’s, if a kid had to wear glasses at school, unfortunately it was something that was not easily- or ever - accepted by the other kids in class. If you wore glasses, it certainly eliminated you from being in the popular group. “Four eyes!”  “ Geek!” “Nerd!” “Book worm!” ( I guess because you wore glasses, they automatically assumed you loved to read), were some of the insults I heard hurled at my eyeglass-clad classmates. (In elementary school, I did not have any refractive error. But welcome to the late thirties with its loss of accommodation – and metabolism - and now I frequent the “ cheaters “ section of my local pharmacy. A presbyopic four-eye, if you will).

Fast-forward to 2016 and, as an ophthalmologist taking care of elementary and high school-aged patients, I have found the cultural acceptance of eyeglasses has done a complete 180º. I have had 5^th grade students come in and feign poor vision just so that they could get a prescription for glasses.  We’re talking obvious malingering: can’t see the numbers on the reading card, can easily text on their cell phone.

“Exam’s complete- and great news, you don’t need glasses!”

Sadness befalls the child’s face. Looks toward mom, “But Morgan has glasses! I want glasses!! I want to get them with pink frames!”

Sometimes it isn’t this easy to get the child to admit his/her real reason for not being able to read the chart. Sometimes I have to pull mom aside and ask her, ‘Do any of little Suzy’s friends wear glasses, too?’.

Now, I get it. Glasses have become a significant part of fashion of the 21^st century, but there may be a legitimate reason for this.  The number of children with refractive errors has increased substantially over the last thirty years. In the 1970s, 25% of Americans were near-sighted.  By 2011, that number rose to 42%.  According to Dr. Marcie Nichols from Perspectives Vision Clinic, the reasons for this vary, from genetics to visual stress and lifestyle. Many people spend a significant portion of their day reading a computer screen. And when they’re not looking at the screen, they’re perusing their cell phone, Ipad, Kindle, then they’re back to the computer. Then, they go home and after (or during) a nice meal, they’re watching TV. The eyes don’t get a break from near and semi-near focus.

That being said, I suppose it is not surprising that “four eyes!” has moved to the endangered species list of school-age insults. But occasionally, when I have a more mature patient, they tell me how they were tormented in elementary school. Recently, one of my Spanish-speaking patients relayed such an experience to me. Apparently, “cuatro ojos!” knows no cultural bounds:

Doctora: Recuerda, es normal después de la edad de, más o menos, cuarenta años, que todas personas necesitarán  lentes para ver cosas cercanas.

Paciente: Sí, bueno, me he vestido lentes desde mi niñez.

D: ¿De veras?

P: Sí, pero en actualidad, no me ponían los lentes a menudo, porque los otros estudiantes en la escuela me llamaban ¡“cuatro ojos”!

D: No sabía que “cuatro ojos” existía en el mundo latino como una manera de bromear con alguien.

P: Sí, lo existe, pero ahora que lo pienso, hace tiempo que no lo he oído. Supongo es porque más y más niños necesitan los lentes hoy día.

After this conversation, I researched the words “cuatro ojos” to see exactly how they were and are used in the Spanish language. In Spain, the idiom commonly employed is: “ser un cuatro ojos” or exactly translated: “to be a four eyes”.  This phrase holds the same meaning as calling someone ‘four eyes’ does in English – to make fun of or berate them for wearing glasses.  Independent of this, there is another common expression in Spanish, “andar con cuatro ojos”, directly translated as, “to walk with four eyes”. The meaning here is different: it is to take extra care when doing something:

por ejemplo: "Anda con cuatro ojos que esa calle es peligrosa."

for example: “Be very careful, as that street is dangerous.”

Further variations of this colloquial phrase that all have the same meaning include:

“Andar con ojo.” Lit. “to walk with eye”

“Andar con tres ojos.” Lit. “to walk with three eyes”

Now, taking colloquial phrases involving eyes a step further, there is yet another expression:

“tener los ojos bien abiertos”  Literally,  “to have the eyes wide open”

“tener cuatro ojos”  Literally,  “to have four eyes”

Both of these are the equivalent of the English phrase: “to have eyes on the back of your head”, i.e., to see everything that is going on; to be aware of everything going on.

I have found in my own studies of Spanish --which are always on-going -- that if a colloquial phrase or idiomatic expression exists in English, there is usually an equivalent in Spanish.  But one has to take care, oftentimes the same set of words is not directly translated. In some cases, a direct translation may actually hold a different meaning than that initially intended.  Finding the way in which a person expresses the same sentiment within a different lingual and cultural context  is what for me makes the study of languages so beautiful and intriguing.

References

Collin, Liz. Good Question: Why do so many of us need glasses? http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2011/06/22/good-question-why-do-so-many-of-us-need-glasses/

Zadar, Croatia 2011