Eyeteeth

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Jen from Boston.

Well, hello, Jen. This is Grant and Martha from New York City in San Diego.

What’s on your mind language-wise? You got a question for us?

I do. I work in a medical practice, and during a rare dawn moment, one of our oral surgeons asked around the room if we knew the origin of the term eye teeth.

And we didn’t, and he proposed a possible origin of the term, but I wanted to see what you thought.

Eye teeth, E-Y-E-T-E-E-T-H. These are the, which ones are these, Martha?

These are the longest ones, the pointiest ones?

Right, the canines, correct?

Yeah, the upper canines.

The upper canines. Okay.

Okay, so he had a pet theory about this?

He did, and so we frantically started Googling because we’re competitive, and we couldn’t come up with anything.

I did find one OED reference, but it didn’t agree quite with what he said.

Oh, really?

So you’re going to hear what we have to say and then tell us what his theory is. Is that what I’m gathering here?

That’s what I’d like, yeah.

-huh.

Okay.

Well, gosh, as far as I know, it’s the one that’s directly below the eye, right? The root extends up into the skull?

Yeah, the eye teeth have the longest roots. They go way back up under the skull near the eye.

This is why they have the expression, like pulling eye teeth. They’re really hard to get out.

If they were trees, their tap roots would be down way past the center of the earth.

Exactly. And that is what the OED reference indicated.

-huh.

But are you saying that the surgeon had some other theory?

Well, there was just a little more to it. He said that because of the root going so close to the eye, if your tooth gets infected, it goes very rapidly up to your eye and it used to cause blindness very commonly.

Oh, really?

Ew. That’s good to know. I had no idea.

I didn’t mean to gross Martha out there.

You said used to. Is this not a concern anymore?

I’m not sure. I guess, you know, we’ve got more advanced dental medicine.

Mm—

I think I’m going to take the doctor’s word for it, Martha, don’t you?

Well, about the physical effects there, but, I mean, it’s interesting that you also hear the expression to give one’s eye teeth. It’s like your really valuable tooth.

Why is that?

Because these are the ones that can help you chew meat?

I’d give my eye teeth to know.

Thank you so much for your call, Jen.

Yeah, thank you, guys.

Okay. Nice talking with you.

Bye-bye. Take care.

Bye-bye.

We’d love to hear your questions about language, your questions about parts of the body, as long as they’re language-related, and anything else that occurs to you, usage, grammar, slang, you name it.

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