But does anyone know why murder should be blue? The association of blue air with cursing has been around since at least the 1880s Farmer & henley, slang and its analogues (1890) offers this brief entry To make the air blue, phr [ase], (popular) Farmer & henley then sends the reader off to look at its entry for sense 2 of the adjective blue, which is as follows The wikipedia article on sulfur confirms the flame color
Sulfur burns with a blue flame with formation of sulfur dioxide, which has a suffocating and irritating odor But is that the original rationale for blue blazes Also, when and where did the earliest recorded instances of blue blazes and blue blazes of hell occur? 10 if you are sad and describe yourself as feeling blue, you are using a phrase coined from a custom among many old deepwater sailing ships If the ship lost the captain or any of the officers during its voyage, she would fly blue flags and have a blue band painted along her entire hull when returning to home port. What is the origin of the term ‘blue movie’ to mean porn film
The usage of ‘blue’ for nasty, lewd, deviant, seems to go back at least as far back as 1900, which suggests it could have been (but not necessarily) used to describe pornographic photos But when did it start? The true origin is what you’d expect in a business setting The phrase “working blue” came into usage at the time If a representative of the keith orpheum circuit objected to the content of an act, a request to cut the material was sent backstage in a blue envelope This, plus the fact that the french term is bleu as well, makes me feel this isn't the right etymological alley.
Here is the definition of off color in chapman & kipfer, dictionary of american slang, third edition (1995) Off color adj phr by 1875 somewhat salacious That same reference reports that blue in the sense of lewd, rude, suggestive appeared in american english by 1840 The same sense of blue appears. We might say that someone who is exceptionally chatty can talk a blue streak. what is the origin and meaning of this phrase Is it generally insulting, or a nice way of saying someone is a chat.
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