Where did that saying come from?

Subject: RE: Where did that saying come from?
From: Hrothgar
Date: 12 Feb 02 - 06:14 AM

If the Spaniards can call Americans "gringoes" because they speak a foreigh language, can the English call them that too?

:-)

Subject: RE: Where did that saying come from?
From: The Shambles
Date: 12 Feb 02 - 03:08 AM

Yes, well down Nudlark!

Subject: RE: Where did that saying come from?
From: GUEST,Murray on Saltspring
Date: 12 Feb 02 - 02:59 AM

Mudlark! I love that parody of yours. Thanks for making me smile [the threads can get a leetle wee bit dire sometimes...] anyway: I figured out a long while back [and John Leeder of the Can Soc for Mus. Trad agreed, quoting Alan Lomax who preceded my insight] that the song that gave the word was "Green Grow the Laurels", which, if you think about it, is a) nearer in time to the use of the word, b) stressed correctly to produce GREENgo [instead of GREEN GO, evenly stressed].

Subject: RE: Where did that saying come from?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 05:52 AM

Word History: In Latin America the word gringo is an offensive term for a foreigner, particularly an American or English person. But the word existed in Spanish before this particular sense came into being. In fact, gringo may be an alteration of the word griego, the Spanish development of Latin Graecus, “Greek.” Griego first meant “Greek, Grecian,” as an adjective and “Greek, Greek language,” as a noun. The saying “It's Greek to me” exists in Spanish, as it does in English, and helps us understand why griego came to mean “unintelligible language” and perhaps, by further extension of this idea, “stranger, that is, one who speaks a foreign language.” The altered form gringo lost touch with Greek but has the senses “unintelligible language,” “foreigner, especially an English person,” and in Latin America, “North American or Britisher.” Its first recorded English use (1849) is in John Woodhouse Audubon's Western Journal: “We were hooted and shouted at as we passed through, and called ‘Gringoes.’”

Subject: RE: Where did that saying come from?
From: GUEST,Stavanger Bill.
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 04:56 AM

Hi Mr Red,

I have heard something similar wrt the derivation of the term "Gringo". In the version I heard, "Green Grow the Rushes Oh" was a song by Robert Burns carried abroad by Scottish settlers and was sung by those fighting on the Texan side during their war of independence.

I do not believe that British troops have ever fought against Mexicans - but somebody out there may know different.

Cheers,

Bill

Subject: RE: Where did that saying come from?
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 03:40 AM

WWW is an excellent site, and I've been subscribing to the Quinion weekly half-holiday for a couple of years now. There's also Take our word for it, a US-based (but nevertheless very entertaining!) etymological site.

Steve

Subject: RE: Where did that saying come from?
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 09:22 PM

Bloom 'Un? You mean the old "forest fires in (& they were big'uns) in Columbia, spewing micro-partical into the upper atmosphere which absorb light at all frequencies but not so well at the blue of the spectrum" is also untrue?
Now what colour was the moon in Malaysia recently?
I am going to consult Brewer's on this.
I have heard both explanations. But I don't remember why one was blue, guess I just gotta go and click that blue one after all.

Now just to stir a bit I heard on the same radio prog the derivation of "Gringo" and it had a siege of a British soldiers by Mexicans. Just out of bravado they brits sang endlessly "Green Grow the Rushes Oh" but probably the "I'll give you one oh" song.
ergo when the debacle was over (oh) the British got the appelation "Gringo"
anyone believe that?

Subject: RE: Where did that saying come from?
From: Mudlark
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 10:50 PM

Blue moom, you saw me standing aloom
Without a bloom in my cart, without a room of my own.

Blue moom, your new and now never after
Will come a rat on a rafter
Just like the Mad Hatter's laughter

Then suddomly I gloomed before me
The bonely one I knew to be my own
I whiskered Please absolve me
And when I loomed the bloom had turned to mold

Blue moom, now I'm no longer a loon
Without the gander I fancied
To put a song in my heart.

Subject: RE: Where did that saying come from?
From: heric
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 01:42 PM

That's what I thought. But not quite entirely exactly. Just click on Shamble's link.

"As the years passed, this was taken up as I've already described, though this "two full moons in one month" meaning of blue moon only started to achieve much circulation from about 1988, no doubt as a result of the Trivial Pursuit reference. "

Subject: RE: Where did that saying come from?
From: GUEST,SharonA at the library
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 01:33 PM

Nope, GUEST, Misophist is correct.

Subject: RE: Where did that saying come from?
From: GUEST,okthen, wth comp.prob.
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 01:01 PM

I thought "Blue moon" was when an enormous eruption rakatoa or Mt. St. Helens, threw so much debris into the atmosphere that the light refraction caused the moon to appaer blue, I could be wrong......I often am.

Subject: RE: Where did that saying come from?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 11:30 AM

Blue Moon is a sailor's term. It's when you have two full moons in one month.

Subject: RE: Where did that saying come from?
From: The Shambles
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 11:09 AM

Well maybe not 'Blue Moom'.

Subject: Where did that saying come from?
From: The Shambles
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 11:07 AM

I found this wonderful site when looking for an explanation of 'the curate's egg. It has answers for such terms as 'Blue Moom' and suchlike.

It has a random option where information that you never knew you could live without, just pops up 'Out Of The Blue'!

World Wide Words

http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-blu2.htm