Blue

BLUE is a primary color. Metaphorically, blue is associated with constancy, with faith, and with 'celestial things.' Blue means 'puritanical.' A blue law is a law set up for the rigid control of morals and conduct. A blue pig is an establishment for the sale of illicit liquor. A blue nose is a reformer, a hypocrite, or a Nova Scotian potato. To be blue is to be melancholy, drunk, off-key, or (chiefly of women) really or affectedly learned, intellectual, or pedantic. A blue is a smoker who does not inhale. A blue boy, a bluebelly, or a bluecoat is a policeman. A blueskin is a thief. A blue gown is an immoral woman, or, more specifically, a prostitute. Blue-blazes is hell. To be in a blue funk is to be incapacitated through extreme nervousness. A blue book is a book listing the aristocracy, a booklet in which college examinations are written, or a book of pornography. A blue word is an oath or a curse, and to make the air blue is to curse and swear. A blue gag is a risqu6 story or joke, and blueology is the art or practice of singing blue songs or the 'science' of preparing off-color material for presentation on the stage.' Obviously, blue is a through-the-looking-glass word,2 a word of many (and often contradictory) meanings, some of which are dead, some of which are very much alive, and at least one of which-blue, meaning 'indecent' or 'obscene'-seems, after an existence of more than one hundred years, to be moving from the limbo of argot toward general usage. It is the purpose of this paper (i) to show by specific quotations the widespread emergence (or reemergence) of blue, 'indecent, obscene' in the United States; (2) to trace, as far as is possible, the history of the word in this specialized meaning; and (3) to attempt an explanation of its persistence as slang (or less) in the English language. Blue, in the sense of 'indecent' or 'obscene,' is not listed in The American

Art · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Literature, Film, and Journalism Analysis · Media, Gender, and Advertising · History

• Blue as a Marker of Intensification

  Kenneth M Morris•American Speech•1976

  Add to list