Glossary of New Mexican Spanish (1934) (part one)

[Jan Ivarsson TransEdit]

Sabatini&Coletti, Dizionario Italiano, says that the joking expression "quattrocchi" is known since the 18th century. Google has something like 1600 hits for the name, so the word must have been fairly popular.
OED has
1755 T. Amory Mem. (1769) I. 199 Some people have named this bird [the golden eye] the *four-eyes.  1874 Slang Dict., Four eyes, a man or woman who habitually wears spectacles.

Jan Ivarsson

----- Original Message -----
From: "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2003 5:05 PM
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Glossary of New Mexican Spanish (1934) (part one)


> In a message dated 03/22/2003 10:59:00 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST writes:
>
>
> > ["quatrojos"] is more likely either a loan from Italian or an independent
> > creation.
> > Italian has "quatrocchio" or "quattrocchio" as a popular expression for a
> > person wearing spectacles
>
> Interesting.  Is the English expression "four-eyes" also a loan-translation
> from the Italian?
>
>      - Jim Landau
>