Re: Re: [ADS-L] Re: † † † Re: Glossary of New Mexican Spanish (1934) (part one)

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

If "Foureyes" is an Italian family name, does it not precede the general use
of eyeglasses? At any rate, "four eyes" as a nickname for somebody who wears
glasses does not take a lot of imagination. Surely persons speaking Mexican
Spanish in New Mexico in 1934 were quite capable of making this mental leap
on their own, without having to borrow it from Italians living in Spain and
Mexico. It seems highly unlikely that it would have been borrowed as a calque
into Spanish AND English from Italian--which has not been, relatively
speaking, very productive as the source of English (and Spanish?) loan
translations). Without some pretty explicit evidence to the contrary, the
idea of an Italian source hardly seems worth pursuing.


In a message dated 3/23/03 5:34:47 AM, jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST writes:


> Maybe not in New Mexico, but certainly both in Spain and in Mexico, long
> before 1934.
> I find the word also in
> http://mexico.udg.mx/arte/folclore/picardia/ : CUATRO OJOS o cuatro
> lamparas.- Persona que usa anteojos.
> Jan Ivarsson
>