The food of my body part

In several of my readings recently I have noticed certain phrases that seemed like anachronisms in their context. Some of the sayings and what have since become somewhat cliche colloquialisms I was astonished to encounter in writings from the 8th century B.C. My interest finally peaked to a level warranting some research today so I decided to look one of them up. The phrase "the apple of my eye" has been popping up a lot lately, specifically in both The Odyssey and The Story of the Stone (Chinese novel from the 1700s by Cao Xuequin). So fueled somewhat by my curiosity but probably more so by my desire to avoid catching up on my political science reading, I looked it up.

It turns out that the phrase is indeed pretty old. It first appeared in Old English in writings by Aelfred of Wessex in AD 885. It was also used by Shakespeare in the 1590's (A Midsummer Night's Dream, one of my personal favorites), and appears several times in the bible. Several internet sites suggested that it came about referring to the central aperature of the eye, and used apples as they were the most common spherical object around.

I also discovered a site presumably dedicated solely to the author's curiosity about the same phrase. They posted this definition: "Apple of one's eye: The pupil of one's eye; figuratively, any thing or person that one cherishes", followed by: "Well I'm sorry, but that just doesn't make sense to me. If anyone has further information on the origin of this phrase, please let me know." I found this pretty amusing, but not as amusing as the list they proceeded to make of other food-body part combinations they felt equally appropriate, which included the bean of my kidney and the cauliflower of my ear. Maybe it's my trained ear, but somehow I don't think referencing a leghume and an internal organ is quite so eloquent.

All this is interesting enough, but it occurs to me that both The Odyssey and Story of a Stone, as well as the Bible for that matter are translated works. I highly doubt that "the apple of my eye" was a literal direct translation from the original languages, so why, I wonder, did the translators choose to interpret it that way? The Odyssey was composed in the 8th century BC yet the phrase doesn't appear in modern english until 885 AD. So I guess the conclusions that I've come to are these:
A. I may not have actually uncovered the first origin of the phrase, but I have sufficiently satisfied my curiosity
B. I don't understand the work of translators but I certainly admire them and find even the thought of translating daunting and tiresome
C. It really is incredible how much of our language survives from much earlier times
D. Anything you ever wanted to know you can find on the internet
E. I have never fully been able to grasp how so much random and detailed information gets on the internet. Who posts detailed instructions on how to bind a book or descriptions of knitting patterns in the Middle East? Seriously, I want to know, who does it?? How does all of this information get out there? Are there really that many people that post stuff on the internet just to have it up there?
F. That phrase obviously really is hackneyed, I mean come on, over a thousand years and no one has come up with anything better to say? Maybe it is time to switch to the bean of my kidney.

New Blogger

Well, I have finally succumbed to all of the pressures inflicted upon me by friends and family and started a blog. It turns out I already had one, courtesy of my brother Zach, so all this undertaking really involved was changing a few colors, uploading a picture, and of course bearing a little of my soul for the masses of the internet (out of which something like two individuals are likely to ever even see this). I suppose 1:30 in the morning is as good a time as any to venture into the world of cyber-prose, but it doesn't seem to be lending itself very well to producing anything particularly interesting to say.

This is posted to my family website, so I guess a bit of an introduction or brief history would be pertinent--for those who stumbled upon this and haven't seen me since I was a baby or something. I am currently a student at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, a mere forty-five minutes from my parent's house in Salt Lake. I am majoring in Comparative Literature (lit in Spanish and English) and minoring in Spanish--an undertaking that seems to be going well so far. It turns out that with literature if you talk long enough and throw in a couple of big and impressive sounding words you can earn an A, since apparently there is "really no right answer", great literature allows for personal and unique interpretations. Luckily for me, this happens to be my specialty. My dad used to tell me my favorite subjects were those in which the right answer is a matter of opinion--he was right.

I've liked most of the classes I have taken so far, though some have been more enjoyable than others. I unfortunately didn't exactly excel in the sciences. My physical science professor didn't really appreciate my own interpretation of relativity and wasn't interested in hearing why I thought that neither A nor B were in fact the right answer. Needless to say I'm sticking with the lit major.

My night owl roomate has just gone to bed which I take as a sign that I really shouldn't be up. So, in the interest of my health and for the benefit of my morning professors tomorrow I will call it a night. I'll try to get better at this blogging thing.