In English, most of your basic optical aids have a name assembled as a compound using the word glass. Maybe we could simply translate these.
On the other hand, most of these devices are easily depicted as themselves, and some of them carry clear metaphorical meanings as well. If you came to a website that had no words whatsoever, but a series of icons instead, you'd still guess that clicking the magnifying glass would search or zoom, the sunglasses would display the cool stuff, the microscope would take you to Science instead of History or Literature.
Device | -glass Compound | Pure Illustration | As Visual Metaphor | ||||||
mirror | looking glass |
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vanity | ||||||
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glasses | eyeglasses |
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look, read | ||||||
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telescope | spyglass |
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astronomy; Also, a verbal metaphor for getting smaller by sliding one part into another. | ||||||
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(same) | magnifying glass |
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look, search | ||||||
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(same) | sunglasses |
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cool | ||||||
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microscope | (none ?) | science | |||||||
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binoculars | field glasses |
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search, find |
Here are a few English words and idioms that have been built using basic optical roots. We may be able to translate these words into glyph combos that use the symbol .
Last updated October 2003
Copyright © 2003 Matthew White