proverb · Words worth keeping
You should never touch your eye but with your elbow.
You should never touch your eye but with your elbow.
Understand the thought
Meaning in plain English
The saying allows touching an eye only with an elbow. Its difficult condition can function as an indirect instruction to leave the eye alone.
Example
Someone identifies the restrictive force of the exception rather than reading it as a suggested touching technique.
Deeper explanation and when to use it
Never and but turn an exception into a restriction. The elbow makes the permitted action awkward, inviting the qualified reading that the permission is not meant to be carried out. As a wider rhetorical example, a rule can forbid something through the condition attached to it. This interpretation is not medical advice and does not claim that any body part or action is appropriate for eye care.
When to use it
Use it to discuss a prohibition expressed through an impractical exception.
Keep in mind
No eye-care method, clinical benefit or exact historical intention is independently verified.
An interpretation of the words, not a claim about their earliest origin.
Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Traditional
Attribution: traditional - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Date unknown
- Culture
- English