"turn the other cheek" = 'turn a blind eye'

[Jonathan Lighter]

I'm quite certain that I've heard this usage - very recently and only once.

JL

On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 11:54 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      "turn the other cheek" = 'turn a blind eye'
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In one of the uncountably many radio discussions of the Penn State sex =
> abuse scandal/cover up, a caller to WFAN (New York sports talk radio) =
> complained that Mike McQueary, in telling administrators about the =
> sexual assault committed by Jerry Sandusky against a 10-year-old that he =
> witnessed as a graduate assistant, instead of intervening against =
> Sandusky himself or reporting the assault to the police, was "just =
> turning the other cheek".  This appears to be a reanalysis of the =
> Biblical expression, traditionally used to counsel passive resistance or =
> nonviolent response, dating back to the Gospels =
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_the_other_cheek).  Here, it has =
> shifted to something along the lines of 'turning a blind eye (to)', =
> definitely with a negative rather than positive (if transgressively so) =
> implication.  Or maybe it's more like 'passing the buck', to switch to a =
> poker analogy.  I don't know how frequent this reanalysis is.=20
>
> LH=
>
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