Chrysti The Wordsmith: Keep Your Eyes Peeled

Greetings This is Christie the wordsmith. In a November 20th 1852 edition of an Ohio publication called The Defiance County Democrat. The journalist writes young man keep your eye peeled when you are after the women. This is one of the first times the expression keep your eye peeled is found in print. November 18 52 though the phrase may have been in verbal circulation for some years or even decades before that date. Keep your eye or eyes peeled of course is an idiomatic way to say Be alert. Watch carefully. Be on the lookout for something or someone. The expression relies on the meaning of the verb peal. A Latin derived term meaning remove or strip as in removing an outer covering. Peeled apples or potatoes have had their undesirable skins pared away in a somewhat gruesome metaphor peeled off have their lids figuratively removed and so unable to blink or close in sleep such eyes are able to see everything all the time. Someone walking around

with peeled off eyes would we presume be hypervigilant nothing would escape his wide gaze. It's an unforgettable image and so typical of American English creativity and hyperbole. A less common expression sometimes seen in Western literature is keep your eyes skinned which is of course identical in meaning to keep your eyes peeled. I'm Christie the wordsmith from Montana State University in Bozeman. Good day verb of course Christie the wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry Zayed web dot com.