Club

Club (pronounced kluhb)

(1) A heavy stick, usually thicker at one end than at the other, suitable for use as a weapon; a cudgel.

(2) A group of persons organized for a social, literary, athletic, political, or other purpose.

(3) The building or rooms occupied by such a group.

(4) An organization that offers its subscribers certain benefits, as discounts, bonuses, or interest, in return for regular purchases or payments.

(5) In sport, a stick or bat used to drive a ball in various games, as golf.

(6) A nightclub, especially one in which people dance to popular music, drink, and socialize.

(7) A black trefoil-shaped figure on a playing card.

(8) To beat with or as with a club.

(9) To gather or form into a club-like mass.

(10) To contribute as one's share toward a joint expense; make up by joint contribution (often followed by up or together).

(11) To defray by proportional shares.

(12) To combine or join together, as for a common purpose.

(13) In nautical, use, to drift in a current with an anchor, usually rigged with a spring, dragging or dangling to reduce speed.

(14) In casual military use, in the maneuvering of troops, blunders in command whereby troops get into a position from which they cannot extricate themselves by ordinary tactics.

(15) In zoological anatomy, a body part near the tail of some dinosaurs and mammals.

(16) In mathematical logic and set theory, a subset of a limit ordinal which is closed under the order topology, and is unbounded relative to the limit ordinal.

(17) In axiomatic set theory, a set of combinatorial principles that are a weaker version of the corresponding diamond principle.

(18) A birth defect where one or both feet are rotated inwards and downward.  Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) was born with the condition although in early self-propaganda he did attempt to suggest it was a battlefield injury from World War I (1914-1918); Goebbels never served in the military.  

1175-1225: From the Middle English clubbe, derived from the Old Norse klubba (club or cudgel) akin to clump, from Old English clympre (lump of metal) related to the Middle High German klumpe (group of trees).  The Proto-Germanic klumbon was also related to clump.  Old English words for this were sagol and cycgel.  The Danish klőver and Dutch klaver (a club at cards) is literally "a clover."  Ultimate root is the classical Latin globus or glomus (forming into a globe or ball), a later influence the Middle Low German kolve (bulb) and German Kolben (butt, bulb, club).  The sense of a "bat used in games" is from mid-fifteenth century; the club suit in the deck of cards is from the 1560s although the pattern adopted on English cards is the French trefoil.  The social club emerged in the 1660s, apparently an organic evolution from the verbal sense "gather in a club-like mass", first noted in the 1620s, then, as a noun, the "association of people", dating from the 1640s.  The Club Sandwich was probably first offered in 1899, the unrelated club soda in 1877, originally as the proprietary name Club Soda.  Club, clubbishness & clubbing are nouns & verbs, clubber is a noun, clubbed is a verb & adjective, clubby & clubbish are adjectives and clubbily is an adverb; the noun plural is clubs.

On her Only Fans page, Tash Peterson shows her club membership.

Something of a local legend in the world of vegan activism, Tash Peterson (b circa 1995) is an animal rights activist based in Perth, Australia.  Not part of the the militant extreme of the movement which engages in actual physical attacks on the personnel, plant & equipment of the industries associated with animal slaughter, Ms Peterson's form of direct action is the set-piece event, staged to produce images and video with cross-platform (Instagram, TikTok etc) appeal, the footage she posts on social media freely available for re-distribution by the legacy media, her Instagram feed providing a sample of her work in various contexts.  The accessories used include blood (reputedly from slaughterhouses) and very fetching figure-fitting costumes styled to resemble various animals including cows, her favored locations including the meat section of supermarkets, cafés and restaurants serving animal flesh, processing facilities associated with the slaughter industry and any events celebrating the carnivorous.  Ms Peterson's other club membership is that of the vegansexuals (vegans who choose to have sex or pursue sexual relationships only with other vegans).  Vegansexuals differ from vegesexuals in that while vegetarians exclude from their diet meat, poultry, and fish, many do consume dairy, eggs and honey, all products Ms Peterson says involve animal cruelty or exploitation and according to her, "plant-powered penises last longer".  Based presumably on her empirical findings, that knowledge is a helpful contribution to civilization. 

The Club Sandwich

Most historians of food suggest the club sandwich (in the sense of an item able to be ordered) first appeared on a menu in 1899 at the Union Club of New York City.  It was however made with two toasted slices of bread with a layer of turkey or chicken and ham between them, served warm, not the three slices with which it’s now associated; at that point the "club" was merely self referential of the institution at which it was served.  Others suggest it originated in 1894 at an exclusive gambling club in New York’s Saratoga Springs; the former is more accepted because there’s documentary evidence while the latter claim is based on references in secondary sources.  It’s a mere etymological point; as a recipe, what’s now thought of as a club sandwich had doubtless been eaten for decades or centuries before the words Club Sandwich appeared on a menu.  The notion that club is actually an acronym for "chicken and lettuce under bacon" appears to be a modern pop-culture invention, derived from a British TV sitcom, Peter Kay’s (b 1973) Car Share (episode 5: Unscripted, 7 May 2018) in what’s claimed to be an un-scripted take, although, on television, very little is really ad-lib and within the industry, "reality" has a specific, technical meaning.  On the show, the discussion was about the difference between a BLT (bacon, lettuce & tomato) and a club sandwich.  On the internet the factoid went viral but was fake news.

Seemingly sceptical: Lindsay Lohan contemplates club.

Ingredients

12 slices wholegrain or rye bread

12 rashers rindless, shortcut, peach-fed bacon

Extra-virgin olive oil

2 free-range eggs

½ cup whole egg mayonnaise

12 cos lettuce leaves

320g sliced lean turkey breast

4 ripe Paul Robeson heirloom tomatoes, sliced

A little freshly-chopped tarragon

Ground smoked sea salt & freshly cracked black peppercorns

Instructions

(1) Preheat a grill tray on medium.  Place half the bread under grill and cook until lightly toasted.  Repeat with remaining bread.

(2) Lightly brush both sides of bacon with oil.  Place under grill and cook for 2-4 minutes each side according to taste.  Once removed, place on a paper towel, turning over after one minute.

(3) Fry eggs, preferably leaving yokes soft and runny.  Fold tarragon into mayonnaise according to taste.   

(4) Spread 8 of the slices of toast with mayonnaise.  Arrange half of the lettuce, turkey and tomatoes over 4 slices.  Evenly distribute the fried eggs.

(5) Top with a second slice of toast with mayonnaise. Then, add remaining lettuce, bacon and tomato. Season well with salt and pepper. Top with remaining pieces of toast.

(6) Cut each sandwich in half or quarters according to preference, using toothpicks driven through centre to secure construction.

Variations

Chefs are a dictatorial lot and tend to insist a club sandwich must be a balanced construction with no predominant or overwhelming taste or texture; with chefs, the trick is to agree with everything they say and then make things to suit individual taste.  By varying the percentages of the ingredients, one can create things like a bacon club with extras and vegetarian creations are rendered by swapping bacon and turkey for aubergine and avocado.  A surprising number find tomato a mismatch, some add cheese or onion while many prefer butter to mayonnaise.  In commercial operations like cafés, tradition is to serve clubs with French fries but many now offer salads, often with a light vinaigrette dressing.  Served with soup, it’s a meal.

1946 Lincoln Club Coupe (body style 77).  When production of the V12 Lincoln Zephyr (1936-1942) resumed in 1946, the cars were sold simply as Lincolns with no model designation, differentiated by the style of coach-work (Sedan, Club Coupe & Convertible Coupe).  When production ended in 1948, it was the last of the American V12s.

The mysterious term “club coupe” emerged in the 1930s to distinguish the style from the “business coupe”, the latter a two door car with only a front seat, the rear compartment used to augment the space in the trunk (boot), the target market the numerous “travelling salesmen” who needed a vehicle with lots of secure storage for their wares.  What the term “club coupe” described was a two-door car with a rear passenger including a bench seat for two or three.  The use of the word “club” was an example of “aspirational branding”, a marketing flourish intended to suggest something more upscale than the utilitarian business coupe, the invocation that of the style and exclusivity of the “private club”.  Being a product of the marketing department, “club coupe” was never precisely defined and while the characteristics associated with the style were sometimes identifiable, never were they long consistent.

1951 Ford Custom Deluxe Club Coupe; long model names are nothing new.

The mid-century tendency was to use a body shorter than that of a sedan but retaining the convenience of a full-size back seat (unlike the single-seat business coupe) but as the “two door sedan” emerged as a descriptor things became fuzzy and by the time the two door hardtops appeared at scale in the 1950s, it wasn’t surprising “club coupe” fell from favour.  Ford in 1954 offered a club coupe but they were the next season renamed “Tudor sedan” (ie a two-door sedan) but made the use murkier still by calling the Customline Six two-door a "Tudor Sedan" and the new V8 Fairlane a “Club Sedan”; business coupes and club sedans lingering for years in the line-up but the club coupe vanished until 1966.  The 1960s revival was a use of the word to allude to the upmarket fittings once associated with the more luxurious club coupes of the pre-war years and like “landau”, “brougham” and such, was just another model designation, suggestive of some link to a happier past.

Promotional images used for 2015 Holden Commodore Clubsport R8 25^th Anniversary Edition.  Note the bogan-themed tyre marks; Holden knew their target-market.

The meaning denoted was different in 1990 when Holden added the V8 HSV (Holden Special Vehicles) Clubsport to the VN range as a “de-contented” entry-level model, along the lines of the original Plymouth Road Runner (1968-1970), the message being: fewer fittings meant lower cost, reduced weight and thus higher performance.  In this case the “club” element of the name denoted a vehicle suitable for amateur motor sport (ie “club-level” competition) in that the car could be road-registered and driven to racetracks where it could be used in standard form or with only slight, temporary modifications (tyres, brake-pads, exhaust systems etc). The Clubsport would remain in the line-up until the end of Holden production in 2017 although, for various reasons, equipment levels steadily increased.

Joyous German Porsche fanboys at a club meeting in 1957, held for them to meet Ferdinand Anton Ernst "Ferry" Porsche (1909–1998), a event they would have found a quasi-religious experience similar to that felt by Apple cultists permitted to be in the same room as Steve Jobs (1955–2011).

It was in the US in the 1930s that manufacturers began to dub cars “club this, that or the other” in a (vague) allusion to the up-market “private club”.  In Germany at the time, “club” was understood as “a stout stick with which one may strike another” and for some years cudgels had been the language of political discourse as the Communists and Nazis battled for control of the streets.  The Nazis clubs prevailed and under the Third Reich (1933-1945) private societies and associations became rare as the party and state attempted to assume totalitarian control, the party deluding itself into believing its crackdown on independence of thought had solved the “Freemason problem”, even creating a “Freemason Museum” on Berlin’s Prinz-Albrecht-Palais (conveniently close to Gestapo headquarters) to exhibit relics of the “vanished cult”.

Founding articles of the Westfälischer Porsche Club Hohensyburg.

After World War II (1939-1945) the private societies returned (including the scourge of Freemasonry) and on 26 May, 1952, seven fanboys (soon there were 13) of the Porsche sports cars (in production since 1948) formed the Westfälischer Porsche Club Hohensyburg; as Porsche Club Westfalen e.V. the club still exists and is based in Dortmund.  It was the world’s first “Porsche club” of which there are now hundreds in a reputed 86 countries with a membership roll believed to be close to a quarter-million and although there are factions devoted to other models, the core of the cult is a kind of “freemasonry of the 911”, a car with a lineage in which traces of the 1948 models remain detectable.  The club’s name also honored the Hohensyburg racecourse near Dortmund, which locals liked to call the “Westfalens Nürburgring” (Nürburgring of Westphalia).

2012 Porsche 911 Club Coupé in Familiengrün.

Although “fanboy” is understood to mean something like übertriebener Fan (excessively obsessive fan), blinder Anhänger (blind follower) or fanatischer Anhänger (fanatical follower), German has absorbed the English slang “fanboy” and uses it unmodified.  In 2012, Porsche celebrated the company’s 60^th anniversary and one component in the celebrations was a run of 13 911 Club Coupés, the unusual production volume a tribute to those 13 fanboys of 1952 who were the foundation members of world’s first “Porsche Club”.  Based on the 991 series (2011-2019) 911 (the concept in series production since 1964), the Club Coupé was bundled with the Sport Design package, X51 Powerkit, body-colored Sport Techno wheels, PCCB (Porsche Ceramic Composite Brakes which used a ceramic disc-rotor reinforced with carbon fibre), Club-themed door sills, and PASM (Porsche Active Suspension Management).

1969 Porsche 911S (chassis #: 911 0300014) in olive green metallic, once the personal car of Ferry Porsche.

Although the specification was standard, Ferry Porsche got a sort of “advance copy” of the new model because it was one of fourteen built (chassis #: 911 0300013 skipped for “superstitious reasons”) for internal use before the summer holidays so customers had to wait a while to enjoy the 180 HP extracted from the 2.2 litre (134 cubic inch) flat-six for the new 911S.  Others in the batch (01, 02 & 03) were allocated to the competition department for use in the 1969 Acropolis Rally which a 911S won.  What the 911 cultists adore is little details the factory added or omitted and of note are the missing front over-riders (an aesthetic choice by Ferry Porsche), a fuel-injection system from the 1966 906 (Carrera 6) and even a tow bar; the provenance of the latter two is uncertain but the tow-bar is a genuine factory part.  One marker of the uniqueness of the run in 2012 of the 13 Club Coupés was the color; although the factory listed the hue as Brewstergrün (Brewster Green), it was known internally as Familiengrün (Family Green), used for Wolfgang Porsche’s (b 1943) personal 911s.  Familiengrün is a concept rather than a chemical specification the influences over the years have included Oakgreenmetallic, Olivegreen and Emeraldgreenmetallic.

Sanpaku

Sanpaku (pronounced san-pach-ew)

An eye in which the sclera (white of the eye) is visible on three sides of the iris rather than the usual two (left & right).

Pre 1700s: A borrowing from the Japanese 三白 (sanpaku) (three whites) or 三白眼 (sanpaku gan) (three-white eyes).  Sanpaku is a noun and sanpakuish is an adjective; the noun plural is sanpakus.

Sanpaku (三白) (three whites) & Sanpaku gan (三白眼) (three-white eyes) are Japanese terms from traditional Chinese & Japanese medicine and they describe the “condition” in which the white of the eye is visible either above or below the iris when looking straight ahead.  Although the word was popularized by Japanese educator and nutritionist Nyoichi “George” Ohsawa (1893–1966) when he published the book You Are All Sanpaku in 1965, the idea had existed in oriental medicine probably for centuries although it’s impossible accurately to determine its origin.  It was mentioned in the diaries of at least one nineteenth century US Navy physician but attracted no interest in the West until the release of Ohsawa san’s book.  In Western medicine the phenomenon is described as “lower scleral show” or “inferior scleral show”, terms which are merely descriptive because (1) it’s something thought within the range of normality, (2) is indicative of no other mental or physical states and thus (3) is generally not considered a medical condition requiring treatment and is attributed variously to (3a) normal variation in eyelid anatomy, (3b) transient facial expression or gaze direction, (3c) traumatic injury or (3d) age-related tissue changes.  There are orbital or eyelid conditions (the best known being a thyroid-related eye disease causing lid retraction) which can induce a sanpaku-like appearance but instances are vanishingly rare.  In short, the medicalization of sanpaku is thought a product of superstition so predictably, on social media, sanpaku eyes seem to have a cult following.

Sydney Sweeney (b 1997) displaying her Sanpaku inferior (sclera (white of the eye) visible below the iris), Met Gala, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manhattan, New York City, May 2025.  Lovely though her eyes are, it may be not many have long focused on them.

In You Are All Sanpaku, Ohsawa san described sanpaku as a condition which indicated physical and mental imbalances and discussed its significance in relation to diet and overall well-being.  Historically, sanpaku is believed to have entered oriental medicine from the Japanese practice of “face-reading” and those with eyes observed thus were considered ill-fated and destined for a life filled with misfortune, culminating often with an early demise.  It gained a following on social media by the usual means: celebrity association.  Diana, Princess of Wales, President John Kennedy & Marilyn Munroe, all of whom died young, were all sanpakus and as Ohsawa san warned in You Are All Sanpaku: the eyes indicate someone's fate, signifying imminent danger or an “early and tragic end.”

Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997, far left), Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962, centre left), Billie Eilish (b 2001. centre right) and John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; POTUS 1961-1963, far right).  Three died young in tragic circumstances but Ms Eilish remains fit and well.

The original basis of “face reading” isn’t known but as a diagnostic tool it focused on the matter of “balance”, something important also to the physicians of Antiquity who identified the “four humors”: flegmat (phlegm), sanguin (blood), coleric (yellow bile) & melanc (black bile) which were the causative agents of the four personality types, the phlegmatic, the sanguine, the choleric & the melancholic.  In the East, signs of sanpaku meant a man’s whole system (physical, physiological and spiritual) was out of balance, something caused by sins committed against the order of the universe, accounting for his sickness, unhappiness or insanity.  Ohsawa san noted that in the West, such folk had come to be called “accident prone” and they were the ones who should take note of the warning from sanpaku, nature’s tap on the shoulder.  A practical author of self-help texts, Ohsawa san recommended sanpaku eyes should be treated with a macrobiotic diet, focusing on brown rice and soybeans, something on which he had real expertise as the founder of the macrobiotic diet.

By their sanpaku you shall know them: Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945, left), crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013, centre) and cult-leader Charles Manson (1934-2017, right).

Interestingly, the beliefs about sanpaku are culturally variable although universally it’s held the condition determines one's fate.  In the Japanese tradition those consequences are ill fate and misfortune while the Chinese associate sanpaku with good luck and wealth and this divergence has interested cultural anthropologists who study the symbolism and mythologies of different societies.  The tradition divides the eyes into "yin sanpaku" and "yang sanpaku", the roots of this the ancient Chinese concept of yin & yang, representing the duality of opposing yet complementary forces in the universe.  Yin and Yang are fundamental concepts in Chinese philosophy and represent complementary and interconnected aspects of the universe. Yin is associated with qualities such as darkness, femininity, passivity, and coldness, while Yang is associated with light, masculinity, activity, and warmth. They’re seen as opposing forces that are in a constant state of dynamic balance and they exist within all phenomena, including human physiology, nature and society.  In this they differ from the (wholly un-related) concept in particle physics of matter and anti-matter.  Matter is the familiar stuff which is much of the physical universe (particles such as protons, neutrons, and electrons) while anti-matter consists of particles with the same mass as their matter counterparts but carrying an opposite charges.  When matter and anti-matter particles come into contact, they can annihilate each other, releasing energy.  Ying and Yang, mutually dependent, live in peaceful co-existence.

The Mean Girls (2004) crew demonstrate the range:  Rachel McAdams (b 1978, far left) & Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, centre-left) are in the part of the population who are either not sanpakus or the effect is imperceptible.  Lacey Chabert (b 1982, centre-right) is in the group with a separation around 1 mm while Amanda Seyfried (b 1985, far right) displays up to 2 mm depending on her expression.

A quadrilateral meeting to discuss German war guilt reparations and allied debts accumulated during World War I (1914-1918): Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934; President of France 1913-1920, far left), Andrew Bonar Law (1858–1923; Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1922-1923, centre-left), Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943, centre right) and Georges Theunis (1873–1966; Prime Minister of Belgium 1921-1925 & 1934-1935, far right), 10 Downing Street, London, December 1922.

Before it became a meme, this was an obscure photograph which until the twenty-first century had appeared only in some specialist history texts but as the internet achieved critical mass, memes became a thing and Mussolini’s sanpaku eyes were a gift for the meme-makers, most captions suggesting the Duce may have had a sudden premonition of his own unfortunate end although others offered: “I feel naked without a moustache”, “I think I have imposter syndrome”, “Oh God, I just pooped my pants”, “I know one of these men is a Freemason but I don't know which” and “I wonder if they can tell I've smoked some weed”.  However, although not noted as a mystic, he may have sensed another's impending death, “sitteth at the right hand”, Andrew Bonar Law then having only months to live.

A colorized image of the lovely Hedy Lamarr (stage name of Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, 1914-2000).  Bare shoulders and sanpaku eyes have an allure.

Once best known as a Hollywood film star, Ms Lamar’s twenty-first century fame comes from her contribution early in World War II (1939-1945) to an early version of “jamming-resistant” radar-guidance.  The idea came to her while playing an ad-hoc piano duet with a composer as they attempted a synchronized “note-hopping” piece, something used in avant-garde compositions but effected mechanically by recording four “player pianos” (instruments modified with electromechanical or pneumatic mechanisms that activated the keys by instruction from perforated paper or metallic rolls) fitted with matching rolls.  From this example, the pair came to understand radio frequencies also could be switched, the wartime utility being this would make signals less susceptible to being jammed.  Even then, “frequency hopping” was not a new idea but the implementation Ms Lamar suggested was sufficiently novel to be granted a patent although the technology didn’t then exist to minimize sufficiently the size of the components which could be used in torpedos or rockets so use of the concept didn’t become widespread until the 1960s.  The “spread spectrum” later became familiar in WiFi and secure networking.

Princess Beatrice, Mrs Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi (b 1988).  Until she appeared at a royal wedding in the fascinator she made famous (some humorless souls would have said infamous), she was most noted for her lovely sanpaku eyes.

In Japanese face reading, yang sanpaku eyes (white part visible above the iris) reveal a person's dark and sinister nature, the eyes indicating the unstable mental state suffered by individuals exhibiting uncontrollable aggression, such as psychopathic murderers or serial killers.  Yin Sanpaku Eyes (sclera visible below the iris) signify a different physical or mental imbalance, one caused by the abuse of drugs, alcohol, and sugar which disrupt the body's equilibrium.  Although discouraged by all in the profession except the odd, entrepreneurial cosmetic surgeon, treatment options are available to “correct” scleral show and the most effect treatment is aesthetic plastic surgery, specifically the procedure called blepharoplasty, which can correct the appearance of the eyes.  The construct of blepharoplasty was blepharo- +‎ -plasty.  Blepharo- was from the New Latin, from the Ancient Greek βλέφαρον (blépharon) (eyelid; a feature resembling an eyelid) and -plasty was from the Ancient Greek πλαστός (plastós) (molded, formed) which now has the special meaning in medicine meaning "repair, restoration or re-shaping of part of the body with a surgical procedure".

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC, b 1989, US Representative (Democrat-New York) since 2019 and one of "the squad") displaying her Sanpaku superior (sclera visible above the iris).  Some other of her body parts are also well-documented.

Casual observation suggests sanpaku eyes are far from rare and there are said to be three classes: (1) those with at least a .25 mm (.0098 inch) space between the iris and the upper and lower eyelids, (2) those with a separation of 1 (.0394 inch) mm and (3) those with a gap of 2 mm (.0787 inch) or more.  The concition need not manifest as something symmetrical (in the vertical axis), the two elements being (1) Sanpaku inferior: white visible below the iris and (2) Sanpaku superior: white visible above the iris, the latter said often induced when a subject is frightened or physiologically stressed).  However although “estimates” have been published, neither the prevalence of the condition nor the distribution within the three (unofficial) groups have ever been the subject of a reputable epidemiological study; because “sanpaku eyes” is not a recognised medical or anthropometric category; funding would thus be hard to secure although, as a purely observational and statistical exercise, presumably not many ethics departments would much be troubled.  So, lacking a defined diagnostic entry, there is no standardised measurement threshold and estimates of prevalence are thus almost certainly speculative and thus unreliable.  Those with sanpaku eyes should not too much dwell on the numbers and instead flutter their eyelashes and enjoy the admiring glances.

Mean Girls four-way phone call: Eye-rolls (Amanda Seyfried, top right) don't count, a sanpaku defined only by separation maintained when looking ahead or to the side.

Humans are not the only species with a sclera but we are untypical in it being so visible.  That humans even have white scleras has interested linguistic anthropologists, evolutionary biologists and other researchers, some offering the Cooperative Eye Hypothesis which suggested the distinctive appearance evolved as a mechanism with non-verbal communication could be enhanced.  According to this conjecture, the high visibility of the iris & pupil against the white background allows an interlocutor more easily to track eye movements, helping individuals to understand where others are looking during interactions.  Observational studies revealed the way humans and other great apes move their heads and eyes in different ways, humans relying more on eye movements than head movements to see where someone else is looking.  Apes, without the white component in their eyes, tend more to move the whole head.  Not all support the "cooperative eye" faction but it’s an interesting approach to understanding the evolutionary significance of the human eye's appearance and the sophistication of communication is certainly a noted difference between humans and apes.

Seeing the whites of the eye: a gree-eyed cormorant taking lunch.

The phrase “don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes” comes of the military and was an instruction to infantry in the age of the musket to delay firing until the target was within close range, the rationale being (1) accuracy would be enhanced and (2) the projectile (musket ball) would strike with greater energy, thus increasing the effectiveness (measured in the casualty & death rates).  It’s often attributed to Colonel William Prescott (1726–1795) shouting it to his troops at the Battle of Bunker Hill (1775) during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) but according to Phrase Finder, the origins lie at least 32 years earlier.  On 27 Jun, 1743, during the Battle of Dettingen (fought in Bavaria as one of the "footnote engagements" of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748)), the resourceful Scot Lieutenant-Colonel (later Lieutenant General) Sir Andrew Agnew of Lochnaw (1867-1761) 5th Baronet) departed from military orthodoxy when, responding to a French cavalry charge, adopted a novel tactic he’d devised, keeping his men not in the conventional square formation to meet the charge head on but having the two centre companies divide from the centre, falling back from the outer markers, thereby compelling the French to gallop through a withering crossfire.  It was potentially a high-risk strategy but he’d trained his troops well the French cavalrymen obediently threaded the needle, suffering heavy losses.  Tacitly acknowledging the danger presented by his innovation, Sir Andrew’s succinct instruction to his brigade had been: “Dinna fire till ye can see the whites of their e' en . . . if ye dinna kill them they'll kill you.”

If the human eye lacked a white sclera it would mean the “messaging” in facial expressions (a non-verbal clue in communication) would have evolved a little differently; Paris Hilton (b 1981) illustrates (digitally altered image).  Ms Hilton has brown eyes but often wears blue contact lens.

As far as is known, all living creatures on Earth came ultimately from a single event which can be said to be the origin of life because at this time, there is no evidence of other living things anywhere in the universe.  Everything else is speculative; life may have started (or arrived) here many other times but for whatever reason not thrived and around the universe there may be many forms of life; some may be more advanced than us or we may be unique in our scientific and technological mastery.  The single point of origin is why we share elements of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid, the so-called “building-blocks of life”) with our cats, dogs, goldfish and bananas so, unsurprisingly, in living creatures, eyes are common, often in pairs but unlike those in humans, not all are out-growths of a brain although, in many of the lineages of the Metazoa they are neurally derived and remain tightly integrated with the central nervous system.

A nice pair of boobies.  Charmingly, blue-footed boobies are known to be monogamous, pairs often staying together for life.  Like us, birds are two eyed vertebrates although except for the old outlier (like owls) their eyes, for good reasons, shifted to the sides.  Note how the booby’s eye differs from that of a human.

As a general principle it all depended on the developmental origin and phylogeny (the evolutionary history of groups of organisms).  In vertebrates (mammals, birds, fish etc), the eye evolved as an evagination (a growth outward) of the forebrain during embryogenesis (the process by which an embryo is formed and develops).  Cephalopods (octopus, squid etc) differ in that while the optic lobes of the brain are large and closely connected, the eye is not literally a brain protrusion; thus, while neurally integrated, the eyes are not brain outgrowths.  Arthropods (insects, crustaceans and such) have compound eyes formed from ectodermal (of the The outermost of the three tissue layers in the embryo of a metazoan animal) tissues which connect to the brain via optic nerves and are thus also neurally connected but not developmental extensions of the brain itself.  Many cnidarians (such as the box jellyfish) possess complex lens eyes but lack a centralized brain, their eyes peripheral sensory structures connecting to nerve rings rather than a true brain.  Many invertebrates have relatively simple photoreceptors which can be thought of as “eyespots” which can be distributed across body tissues, the best contemporary comparison probably the sensors now so ubiquitous in electronic devices.

Boobies, one step at a time.

A booby is a seabird in the genus Sula, part of the Sulidae family.  Boobies are closely related to the gannets (Morus), which were formerly included in Sula, the genus created in 1760 by the French naturalist Mathurin Jacques Brisson (1723-1806).  The name was derived from súla, the Old Norse and Icelandic word for the other member of the family Sulidae, the gannet.  The English name booby was based on the Spanish bobo (stupid) as the tame birds often landed on board sailing ships, where they were easily captured and eaten.  As well as a popular addition to the diet of sailors for whom meat other than fish was a rarity, it was fortuitous for many, the Admiralty's archives revealing boobies often mentioned as having been caught and eaten by shipwrecked sailors.

Mr Andrew Mountbatten Windsor in police car, under arrest, February, 2026.

If humans had eyes free of a white sclera (like the booby and many birds), our appearance would be quite different, illustrated by a digitally edited image of a green-eyed (former prince/duke/admiral etc) Andrew-Mountbatten Windsor (b 1960), rendered as a line drawing by Vovsoft.  However, the use of that image to demonstrate the point may not have been the best choice because, in the original, his expression didn’t appear greatly different.

As well as charming eyes, boobies also have interesting feet.  The distinctive blue feet (the result of pigments ingested from their diet of fish) also play a part in the bobby’s mating ritual although not exactly in the podophilic sense familiar in a sub-set of humans.  In the spring mating season, the bird’s feet become a bright turquoise blue and, to demonstrate their health and vitality, conspicuously they will display them to potential partners.  The job done, as their eggs hatch, the blue hue fades to something less vivid.  One aspect of their behaviour which amused the ornithologists who first observed it was that if among fishers unloading their catch, it tossed a small fish from the by-catch, a booby will take it and waddle off somewhere to enjoy it in solitude rather than gulping it down as in common in many species.  Like penguins, although ungainly on land, they are skilled plunge divers which used their streamlined bodies and air sacs “fly” through the water, catching their prey at high speed and they hunt in "packs", coordinating their movement to maximize the catch.  Boobies have been recorded diving from as high as 90 m (300 feet), their speed upon entry estimated at around 100 km/h (60 mph).