Talk:spectacle
Interesting use in Dickens[edit]
In Dickens' Dombey and Son:
- There was something queer, too, about Mrs Blimber’s head at dinner-time, as if she had screwed her hair up too tight; and though Miss Blimber showed a graceful bunch of plaited hair on each temple, she seemed to have her own little curls in paper underneath, and in a play-bill too; for Paul read “Theatre Royal” over one of her sparkling spectacles, and “Brighton” over the other.
Here it's clear from context that "spectacles" are a pair of glasses, so the use of "one of" to indicate a single lens is unusual. Equinox ◑ 02:48, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
- I think that "spectacles" in this case refers to the lenses of the glasses instead of the glasses themselves. This could be just meronymic use or it could indicate a unrecorded sense of the term. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 09:23, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
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- (figuratively) Something that helps understanding.
- 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Wyfe of Bathes Tale”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, →OCLC:
- Povert' a spectacle is, as thinketh me, Through which he may his very friendes see.
Removed / moved to Middle English by Astova. J3133 (talk) 21:06, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
- OED gives this as a figurative subsense of the eye-glass sense (our sense 3), alongside other cites that use phrases like "look upon it with the oldest spectacles of a Critick" and "rose-coloured spectacles". If we don't want the figurative sense, we can just delete it, I think. This, that and the other (talk) 09:36, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
RFV-resolved, sense deleted as an unnecessarily specific metaphorical use. — This unsigned comment was added by This, that and the other (talk • contribs) at 04:22, 16 April 2022 (UTC).
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Rfv-sense: A spyglass; a looking-glass. - obsolete, used by Chaucer, so maybe didn't survive out of M.Eng Enbleepbleep (talk) 23:38, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
- The Chaucer quote under Middle English is a figurative sense anyway.
- We already have a sense "(usually in the plural) glasses", and many uses of "through his spectacle" would likely fit that sense. OED's corresponding sense is worded much more generally. This, that and the other (talk) 09:48, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
- Failed Jewle V (talk) 17:29, 8 September 2023 (UTC)