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Information about Turn A Blind Eye

The idiom turning a blind eye is used to describe the process of ignoring unpopular orders or inconvenient facts or activities.

The phrase to turn a blind eye is attributed to an incident in the life of Admiral Horatio Nelson.

Nelson was blinded in one eye early in his Royal Navy career. In 1801, during the Battle of Copenhagen cautious Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, in overall command of the British forces, ordered Nelson's forces to withdraw. Naval orders were transmitted via a system of signal flags at that time. When this order was drawn to the more aggressive Nelson's attention, he lifted his telescope up to his blind eye, said he saw no signal, and ordered his forces to continue to press home the attack.

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An idiom is an expression (i.e., term or phrase) whose meaning cannot be deduced from the literal definitions and the arrangement of its parts, but refers instead to a figurative meaning that is known only through common use.
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Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral (equivalent to full general) and four-star rank above Vice Admiral and below Admiral of the Fleet/Fleet Admiral.
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Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, KB (29 September 1758 – 21 October 1805) was an English admiral famous for his participation in the Napoleonic Wars, most notably in the Battle of Trafalgar, a decisive British victory in the war, where he lost his life.
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Naval Service

Components
Royal Navy
  • Surface Fleet
  • Fleet Air Arm
  • Submarine Service
  • Royal Navy Regulating Branch
  • Royal Naval Reserve
  • Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service
Royal Marines
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18th century - 19th century - 20th century
1770s  1780s  1790s  - 1800s -  1810s  1820s  1830s
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Battle of Copenhagen, as painted by Nicholas Pocock. British line is diagonally across the foreground, the city of Copenhagen in the background and the Danish line between. The ships in the left foreground are British bomb vessels.
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Hyde Parker (1739-1807), second son of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, 5th Baronet (1714-1782), entered the Royal Navy at an early age, and became lieutenant in 1758, having passed most of his early service in his fathers' ships.
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Motto
"Dieu et mon droit" [2]   (French)
"God and my right"
Anthem
"God Save the Queen" [3]
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The system of international maritime signal flags is a way of representing individual letters of the alphabet in signals to or from ships. It is a component of the International Code of Signals.
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three wise monkeys (Japanese: , san'en or sanzaru, or , sanbiki no saru, literally "three monkeys") are a pictorial maxim. Together they embody the proverbial principle to "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".
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