> We speak, for example, of sadness or depression as “the blues,” although no one has ever come up with a convincing explanation why. “Blues” music . . . .
Pre- birth of “Blues” music (in the 1920s?), the painters (Van Gogh and?) Picasso had their “blue periods” in which they painted their canvases mostly in blue to signify in color their (for the time being) somber pensiveness, domination by thought –as opposed to the joyous riots of red (color of liberation of the redblooded passions) and other intensely bright colors of the late 1800s French painting movement Fauveism (from French word fauve, wild beast). And in early 1800s English Romantic writers wrote of lady intellectuals as “Bluestockings” (likely because they wore them), and for short “the Blues.” (E.g., Byron’s witty Hudibrastic rhyme “Ye lords of ladies intellectual, in truth, have they not henpecked you all?” So blue (dark shades of melancholy to “baby” or “sky” light tints) seems to be the color of thought, in its complete range of emotional tenors (from anguished to lightly, innocently, purely pleasant) and intensities (expressed on a scale of admixtures from black to white). And same, red, but it expressing emotion — from dark anger to sweet blushes and lightest, innocent baby pink and sanguine good health.
J.:
April 16th, 2014 at 4:30 pm
I do hope that your encounter with the lightning strike did not cause you to forget important sources, but I’m afraid that you’re quite wrong about the etymology of the “blue” in the sense of depression. It comes from an eighteenth-century British expression “to be blue-deviled.” The thought was that blue devils were responsible for causing low spirits, and it’s a short linguistic step from being “blue-deviled” to being “blue.” The expression was carried across the Atlantic, and, in the nineteenth century, a new genre of music was born.
Steve:
May 12th, 2015 at 10:55 am
The phrase “Blue Streak” originated during the battle of the Sacramento River (part of the Mexican American War) in 1847. The Mexican artillery shells, due to a combination of lousy gunpowder and high altitude, left streaks of blue across the sky as they were fired at the Americans. This allowed US soldiers to simply dodge them. After that, “Blue Streak” became sysnomous with fast. Although the Americans were outnumbered 3 to 1, they comletely roputed the Mexicans.
Another term- “Gringos” also supposedly came from the Mexican American war. Mexicans heard the marching Americans singing “Green Grows the grass of my Kentucky Home” and started referring to them as Gringos.
It was my understanding that “blue-bloods” refers not to the oxygen-rich blood pumped out of the lungs, which is bright red and passes through deeply buried arteries; but to the oxygen-starved blood returning to the lungs, which is much darker and flows through the veins, which are much close to the skin). It was noted that many of the nobility, Russians in particular, had very pale, very thin skin, which made these veins appear bluer than those of commoners.
Ufuk:
July 4th, 2020 at 11:32 am
Please take a look at magpie (bird) pictures. You would see a bird with blue streak on the plumage closer to tail. A magpie chatters, talks a lot. Gossip-related words are related to magpies. There is a room in a place in Sintra, Portugal (sala das pegas) where magpies are inscribed on the ceilings and related to gossip.
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Joy:
November 22nd, 2009 at 4:58 am
> We speak, for example, of sadness or depression as “the blues,” although no one has ever come up with a convincing explanation why. “Blues” music . . . .
Pre- birth of “Blues” music (in the 1920s?), the painters (Van Gogh and?) Picasso had their “blue periods” in which they painted their canvases mostly in blue to signify in color their (for the time being) somber pensiveness, domination by thought –as opposed to the joyous riots of red (color of liberation of the redblooded passions) and other intensely bright colors of the late 1800s French painting movement Fauveism (from French word fauve, wild beast). And in early 1800s English Romantic writers wrote of lady intellectuals as “Bluestockings” (likely because they wore them), and for short “the Blues.” (E.g., Byron’s witty Hudibrastic rhyme “Ye lords of ladies intellectual, in truth, have they not henpecked you all?” So blue (dark shades of melancholy to “baby” or “sky” light tints) seems to be the color of thought, in its complete range of emotional tenors (from anguished to lightly, innocently, purely pleasant) and intensities (expressed on a scale of admixtures from black to white). And same, red, but it expressing emotion — from dark anger to sweet blushes and lightest, innocent baby pink and sanguine good health.
J.:
April 16th, 2014 at 4:30 pm
I do hope that your encounter with the lightning strike did not cause you to forget important sources, but I’m afraid that you’re quite wrong about the etymology of the “blue” in the sense of depression. It comes from an eighteenth-century British expression “to be blue-deviled.” The thought was that blue devils were responsible for causing low spirits, and it’s a short linguistic step from being “blue-deviled” to being “blue.” The expression was carried across the Atlantic, and, in the nineteenth century, a new genre of music was born.
Steve:
May 12th, 2015 at 10:55 am
The phrase “Blue Streak” originated during the battle of the Sacramento River (part of the Mexican American War) in 1847. The Mexican artillery shells, due to a combination of lousy gunpowder and high altitude, left streaks of blue across the sky as they were fired at the Americans. This allowed US soldiers to simply dodge them. After that, “Blue Streak” became sysnomous with fast. Although the Americans were outnumbered 3 to 1, they comletely roputed the Mexicans.
Another term- “Gringos” also supposedly came from the Mexican American war. Mexicans heard the marching Americans singing “Green Grows the grass of my Kentucky Home” and started referring to them as Gringos.
David E Bass:
May 5th, 2017 at 9:06 pm
It was my understanding that “blue-bloods” refers not to the oxygen-rich blood pumped out of the lungs, which is bright red and passes through deeply buried arteries; but to the oxygen-starved blood returning to the lungs, which is much darker and flows through the veins, which are much close to the skin). It was noted that many of the nobility, Russians in particular, had very pale, very thin skin, which made these veins appear bluer than those of commoners.
Ufuk:
July 4th, 2020 at 11:32 am
Please take a look at magpie (bird) pictures. You would see a bird with blue streak on the plumage closer to tail. A magpie chatters, talks a lot. Gossip-related words are related to magpies. There is a room in a place in Sintra, Portugal (sala das pegas) where magpies are inscribed on the ceilings and related to gossip.