Know your English – The Hindu

“I understand that Dev Anand is extremely happy that Yuktha has won the Miss World title.”

“Why should he be happy?”

“He is planning to remake his old hit, ‘Teen Deviyan’. This time he is going to cast Aishwarya Rai, Sushmita Sen, and Yuktha. The three beauties from India.”

“Who is going to play the hero?”

“What a silly question! The evergreen Dev Anand, of course! And if we turn a Nelson eye to the problem of….”

“….Nelson eye? Who is this Nelson you are talking about?”

“Horatio Nelson. He was an Admiral in the English Navy in the early 1800s.”

“Oh, that Nelson. I remember reading about him in one of the history lessons. Wasn’t he the man who destroyed the French and Spanish fleets in the Battle of Trafalgar?”

“That’s right. Nelson died in that battle.”

“He was blind in one eye, wasn’t he?”

“He was blind in his right eye. And that’s what the expression ‘to turn a Nelson eye’ to something means — to turn a blind eye to something.”

“But what’s the connection? I don’t….”

“….there’s a story behind that. You see, during one of the many battles that Nelson fought, one of his superiors signalled from another ship for Nelson to withdraw. When the sailors on Nelson’s ship pointed this out to him, Nelson placed a telescope on his right eye — his blind eye. He then told his men to continue fighting as he had not seen a signal ordering him to withdraw.”

“So Nelson wasn’t good at following orders, was he?”

“I guess you could say that! He used to turn a blind eye to them.”

“And in Nelson’s case, he literally turned a blind eye to them.”

“When you turn a blind eye to something, you pretend not to see something, even though you already have. Here is an example….”

“….let me! Let me! When I informed the Principal about how the students cheated in the exams, he turned a Nelson eye to the problem. Can I say that?”

“Yes. My boss has been turning a Nelson eye to the corruption that has been going on for several years now.”

“Most Indians have turned a Nelson eye to the problem of corruption.”

“Yes, that’s the sad part. We seem to wink at the….”

“….wink at? What does it mean?”

“When you ‘wink at’ something that someone has done, you pretend not to see it, even though the person may have done something terribly wrong.”

“Even though he/she may have done something illegal?”

“I guess you could say that. Here’s an example. The party chief refused to wink at the corruption charges levelled against the candidate.”

“The Principal winked at the ragging that went on during the first week of college.”

“When the former Minister’s house was raided, they found that he had several foreign accounts. The income tax officials were unwilling to wink at the large sums of money.”

“My cousin’s wife buys new curtains every two months.”

“Doesn’t your cousin say anything to her?”

“No, he merely winks at his wife’s extravagance.”

“He loves his wife that much, eh?”

“I don’t think love has anything to do with it. He merely wants to be left alone.”

“That’s understandable.”

“Tell me, is there another way of saying to ‘wink at’? I mean….”

“….to look the other way.”

“In other words, not looking in the direction where something is happening, but to look in some other direction.”

“Very good. And you look in the wrong direction deliberately. In other words, you are turning a….”

“….turning a blind eye to what is going on.”

“The businessman told the Income Tax officer that he would receive a lot of money if he looked the other way.”

“The Principal knew that some of the students were selling drugs in school, but he kept looking the other way.”

“Gopa was aware of the fact that Venkat was taking money, but he looked the other way because Venkat was his cousin’s husband.”

“That reminds me. I am supposed to go to my cousin’s to pick up something. I guess I’ll just have to turn a Nelson eye to the dirt and grime that one finds in that house.”

Published in The Hindu on December 14, 1999

Published – March 18, 2026 08:30 am IST