Word for glasses wearing

Hi,

A quick look at google image I found that «eyeglasses» is «glasses», and I am wondering if this word is in use? Most of the time I heard people said a pair of glasses, can I say:

He is reading by wearing a pair of eyeglasses.Thanks a lot

Silver, I think we should tell you that your suggested sentence is unidiomatic. I would say «He is reading with his glasses on.»

I agree.

Also:

He needs his glasses to read.

This major American chain of opticians has no problem with «eyeglasses.»

http://www.visionworkseyewear.com/

I looked at their site and they are quite consistent on the use of «eyeglasses». It sounds more formal to me than «glasses».

Unlike the on-line store, Eyebuydirect.com which bounces around from «glasses» to «eyeglasses» like a ping pong ball.

I do not think it is at all common in the UK to say / write eyeglasses.

suzi br — I think it is very rare. The COED has it as an American word for glasses. There are, however, a few examples in the British National Corpus.

COED has it as an American word for glasses.

Oh, for heaven’s sake. An «American word for glasses»? «American»??? Where in the world are we supposed to have gotten it from, anyway? It isn’t as if either the item or the term was invented on this side of the Atlantic! Might it not be the case that Americans are simply continuing to use a word that Britons of the past would have found entirely normal? As «eyeglasses» would have been the original form, it seems more accurate to me to say that «glasses» is a common modern British word for «eyeglasses».

I have never heard any British English speaker talk about their ‘eyeglasses’ nor read the word in any contemporary source. I would not be surprised to hear some very ancient aristocrat talking about having ‘lorst the old eyeglasses, eh what!’ though I think it’s fair to say that eyeglasses isn’t used in British English these days. ‘Glasses’ seems to have superseded ‘spectacles’ except in informal colloquial use when ‘specs’ is used. I heard ‘eyeglasses’ used several times in the years I spent in the USA apparently in much the same way as we use ‘glasses’. «How charmingly quaint» I thought, like ‘gotten’ or ‘dove’. Of course, being British, I have no way of evaluating what using ‘eyeglasses’ might signify to another American about the person using the term.

There have been at least two threads recently on the same topic.
I checked out some well known British chain opticians — they only use ‘glasses’. It seems to me that ‘glasse’s is a common enough word in the USA to be a) understandable and b) perfectly acceptable.

It is possible that I might not understand what sort of glasses was being referred to although context usually makes it clear. If I was hosting a foreign visitor with very limited English around London, she might say «glasses». I would then have to find out what sort of ‘glasses’ she meant. When we say we need some new glasses we assume that glasses for seeing better is meant unless it is not clear.

As for your sentence Silver, and only because suggestions for improvement have already been made, perhaps what you want to say is usually expressed by «He needs glasses to read». This means that the person can’t see well enough to read without ( the help of) glasses.

Hermione

Oh, for heaven’s sake. An «American word for glasses»? «American»??? etc .

Are the Oxford English Dictionaries an authoritative source for English usage? I accept them as such, and I suspect it would be a minority that does not. The Concise Dictionary is specific about «eyeglass» which is a British English word.

eyeglass
noun
1 a single lens for correcting or assisting defective eyesight; a monocle. >(eyeglasses) North American another term for glasses.
2 an eyepiece.

In BE the plural eyeglasses does not mean a pair of spectacles. If it ever did it is long gone from the normal British form of the language. Why do you object to a statement of fact? It’s no different from your use of «gotten» in your posting. That is an American English form of the past-participle which has long gone from British English. It would, thus, be correct to refer to it as an American word. The COED does, however, acknowledge it as archaic in BE — unlike eyeglasses.

The OED is very forthright about the difference between eyeglasses (or eye-glasses) and spectacles in British usage:

the name [eyeglasses] is by usage restricted to a pair of lenses to be held in the hand or kept in position by a spring on the nose; those which are secured by pieces of metal placed over the ears being called spectacles.

I’m not so sure, however, that «eyeglasses» (meaning glasses without sides) are not also referred to as «spectacles». The College of Optometrists in its interesting history of glasses refers to all types of pairs of glasses as «spectacles». That seems natural to me, too.

As glasses of the above «eyeglass» type are not often seen these days, and allowing that the word spectacles (and terms such as «pince-nez» and «lorgnette») is also used for them, «eyeglasses» is not a word often heard in Britain. It is not used in Britain for spectacles of the conventional modern type, whereas in the US it clearly is.

The simple term «glasses» has been used for spectacles from the beginning, from what I can see, and I’m fairly sure is the most common term for them in everyday English.

Oh, for heaven’s sake. An «American word for glasses»? «American»??? Where in the world are we supposed to have gotten it from, anyway? It isn’t as if either the item or the term was invented on this side of the Atlantic! Might it not be the case that Americans are simply continuing to use a word that Britons of the past would have found entirely normal? As «eyeglasses» would have been the original form, it seems more accurate to me to say that «glasses» is a common modern British word for «eyeglasses».

Americans wear glasses; the British wear spectacles. (As Matching Mole so aptly points out.)

Packard, I don’t think Matching Mole said that. The British wear glasses (or spectacles or specs) — they just don’t wear eyeglasses.

A careful re-reading confirms your remark.

I hope I might be forgiven for straying a little off topic, but I can’t resist posting this ancient joke, which illustrates the point several have already made.

A: My grandmother is 90 years old and has never used glasses.
B: That’s wonderful!
A: Yes, she drinks straight from the bottle.

Your old grandmother should be ashamed. She’s making a spectacle of herself!

Perfect punnage.