When
I was a child, if one rubbed one’s eyes upon waking up the natural question to
be asked was ‘Have you got sleep in your eyes?”
‘Sleep’ in that context was a colloquial word for gound, the matter that
collects in the corner of the eyes or on the eyelashes when rheum dries. Although gound and rheum are sometimes said
to be synonymous they aren’t. Gound is solid matter whilst rheum is thin mucus
naturally discharged as a watery substance from the eyes, nose, or mouth; the
word rheum coming from the Greek for ‘to flow’.
All
this probably comes under the heading ‘Things one didn’t wish to know!’
