Word Nerd Wednesday – I’d Give My Eye-Teeth

Happy Wednesday, word nerds! Today’s Word Nerd post is inspired by yesterday’s Top Ten Tuesday post in a round-about kind of way. Yesterday’s topic was Books I’d Slay a Lion to Get Early. As I was thinking about the post, I began thinking about phrases other than ‘slay a lion’ that could be used to convey the same sort of meaning, and one of the first ones that came to me was I’d give my eye-teeth. It wasn’t long before I was asking myself, ‘What’s so special about my eye-teeth, anyway?’

First of all, what are your eye-teeth? Also known as canines, these are the ‘pointy’ teeth third from the centre on either side of your mouth. For a while the term applied specifically to the teeth in this position on the upper jaw, but it’s gradually come to include the equivalent teeth on the lower jaw. Prior to the study of human anatomy, it was believed there was a nerve connecting the eye and the canine tooth on the same side, hence the term eye-teeth.

If you look around on the internet, you’ll quickly learn there’s no definitive answer to why people thought the eye-teeth were so valuable. Some theories relate the saying to a similar one—cutting your eye-teeth—which refers to the fact that the eye-teeth are among the last of a baby’s first set of teeth to erupt. If you’re cutting your eye-teeth, you’re reaching a new level of maturity. It then follows, according to this school of thought, that your eye-teeth symbolise maturity and experience, and if you’re willing to give your eye-teeth, you’re implying that you’d exchange that experience and wisdom for the thing in question.

Other theories take a more functional approach. The belief that there was a nerve running between the eye and its corresponding canine tooth seems to have given rise to the myth that the removal of an eye-tooth would cause blindness in the corresponding eye. While that may not be true, we DO now know that the eye-teeth are critical to the shape of the jaw and for supporting the other teeth when chewing. The eye-teeth are not only the strongest teeth, but they also have the longest roots (and are therefore perhaps one of the most difficult/painful to remove? I wasn’t able to find a definite answer on that point). In any case, these theories imply that one is willing to give up sight or allow basic activities like speech and eating to be adversely affected, so great is their desire.

In researching this saying, however, I came across a most interesting piece of information that makes me wonder whether there’s another possible explanation. Did you know that they removed teeth from the bodies of soldiers who died in the Battle of Waterloo to make dentures? True story! Dentistry was in its infancy in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, but sugar consumption and tooth whitening practices that wore away the enamel on teeth meant that the teeth of the wealthy were far from healthy. You can read more about it in this article from the BBC, but basically, dentures were a hot item, and while they could be made of ivory, real teeth were preferred and people were willing to pay for them! And the eye-teeth appear to have been the highest paying of the frontward teeth.

The phrase I’d give my eye-teeth first appears in the early 19th Century as well. Is it possible that the phrase came about because a person was so keen to do or have something they’d take the drastic action of selling their eye-teeth to bring it about? We’ll probably never know for sure, but it’s an answer that makes as much sense as any other I came across.

Which do you think is the most plausible explanation?

PS – for those of you still waiting to find out the correct definition of ‘Troglodyte’ from this post, the answer was (b) a cave-dweller or hermit. 🙂