If you only have one eye are you winking or blinking?

[Freya]

Coworker asked me this about Mike Wazowski from Monsters Ink. Now I'm not sure.

[qwertysaur]

Yes

[Darth Ganon]

Mike Wazowski!

[Bubba]

My ex-girlfriend was unable to wink. Whenever she tries it she just ended up blinking both eyes. Whenever she wanted to convey a wink, she would give her head a quick tilt when she blinked. No-one ever noticed.

I think the answer to this question depends entirely on whether a head tilt is involved.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

People who want to base it on what they see seem to forget that the cyclops has agency. Selfish.

The distinction between a blink and a wink for a cyclops depends wholly upon the intentions of the cyclops.

If the closing and subsequent opening of his eye occurs involuntarily due to a dry feeling in his eye or because a gnat has flown into his eye, etc., the action should be classified as a blink. If on the other hand, the cyclops is using the shutting and opening of his eye as a means of subtle non-verbal communication including but not limited to flirting with a lady cyclops, the action should be classified as a wink.

[Formalhaut]

Yeah but a wink doesn't even have to be romantic in nature. Maybe the wink is a 'knowing' aside wink.

[Freya]

But you wink by closing one eye. So if you only have one eye, can you not wink?

[Formalhaut]

Truly a question for the philosophers, this.

[Mr. Carnelian]

Blinking is (most of the time) involuntary. Winking is a vountary act. Therefore, you can be either blinking or winking even with a single eye. Solved!

[Formalhaut]

Blinking is (most of the time) involuntary. Winking is a vountary act. Therefore, you can be either blinking or winking even with a single eye. Solved!

That doesn't help, how can the recipient of the wink/blink tell which is which?

[qwertysaur]

Blinking is (most of the time) involuntary. Winking is a vountary act. Therefore, you can be either blinking or winking even with a single eye. Solved!

That doesn't help, how can the recipient of the wink/blink tell which is which?

If you have to ask, you will never know.

[Sephex]

Yeah, I need to look at this myself. Okay, give me a second.

Alright, so I spent about 10 minutes in the bathroom with one hand covered over my eye. With the uncovered eye, I tried to only partially close my eye horizontally, if that makes sense. Think a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure. Like the ones with the mouth all grrrrr, but the mouth is only part way open. I tried to do that with my eye. I tried to do what the picture below is with my damn eye.



I...sort of knew this going in, but yeah, it doesn't work. If you have one eye your default state is blinking.

























This has nothing to do with anything, but I found it when google searching the turtle figure and it made me laugh my ass off.