ears peeled

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:22 PM -0500 1/26/10, Robin Hamilton wrote:
>Chicken and egg (I could check) but did "stone blind" (for completely blind)
>emerge before, or out of, "sand (semi) blind"?
>
>I'd guess the former (I seem to recall it comes up in Shakespeare
>somewhere), but I *am guessing.
>
>Robin

Unclear.  The first cite for "sandblind" in the OED is 15th c. but
apparently undatable otherwise, but the etymological listing insists
that it is "probably a perversion" of OE "samblind".  "Stone-blind"
and is attested (as "stane-blynde") in 1375; the second cite is from
1591, and comes from a book whose title, _Conny Catching_, evokes
another recent thread.

LH

>>At 10:38 AM -0500 1/25/10, Baker, John wrote:
>>>         We do have several terms for poor but not absent sight,
>>>including half-blind, purblind, and the archaic sand-blind
>>
>>--archaic and eggcornic, since it started out as "samblind", i.e.
>>"semi-blind".  The sand was a later accretion.
>>
>>LH
>
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