Moon Idioms

Several words have become part of the language in being used in phrases. Last time we looked at ‘ice’ and now look at ‘moon’.

Man in the moon, as opposed to man on the moon, is derived from the idea the surface features can be seen to resemble a face on that side of the moon facing Earth. Mentioned since the 14th century, some reports say he carries a bundle of thorn twigs and is accompanied by a dog. The Japanese claim to see a ‘rice-cake-making rabbit’ – which is really stretching credibility.

The old moon in the new moon’s arms, seen in print for the first time in 1727, describes the first sliver of the new moon lit by the sun with the remainder visible by the faint illumination coming from reflected light from Earthshine.

To moon, as in wandering about as if in a daze, first appears in 1836.

Moonstruck, first seen around 1670, is another reference to someone apparently witless – here the link of lunacy to lunar.

To moon, as in to bare one’s buttocks, is first seen in 1968 – student slang likening the pale flesh of the untanned posterior to the silver light of the moon.

Blue moon is a something rarely occurring. In truth, a blue moon is a second full moon in a calendar month, an isn’t all that rare as it happens, on average, every 33 months – it is first spoken of in 1528. Other phrases which suggest a rare occurrence include: “at the Greek calends”; “in the reign of Queen Dick and Saint Geoffrey’s Day”; and “Nevermass” The song Blue Moon was written in 1934 and has been recorded multiple times in the last 90 years.

A moondial is the same as a sundial, it seen in 1680.

Moon face, probably not intended as a compliment, describes someone with a rather rounded face and is first recorded in 1854.

Moon dog is seen from the 1660s to describe a dog which howls at the moon- Neighbour’s dog howls each time it hears the ice cream van – does this make it a Cur-netto? A Whippy-et? A choc-cur spaniel? OK I’ll stop.

Moon shot is first recorded in 1958, a year before the first unmanned probe made a fly-by of the satellite.

Moon calf, a shapeless fleshy mass, first seen in the 1560s and sixty years later used as a derogatory term.

Half moon, which must have been seen since before humans were able to vocalize, is only recorded from the 1520s.

Honeymoon – so called because the Saxons would celebrate a union with a drink made brewed from honey.

Moonshine refers to illicitly distilled or smuggled liquor, first seen in 1785.

Nothing was described as moonlit until as recently as 1819.

Moonbeams have only been around since the 1580s.

The moonrace began in 1963.

Moonglow is a term coined in 1926.

Moonscape was first used in 1926.

Moonlight has been used since the 1670s.

Moonwalk was first used in 1966, despite Neil Armstrong not getting there for another three years. The dance move of the same name popularized by Michael Jackson was not coined until 1983.

Moonglade is a delicious expression and first used in 1860 to describe a track of moonlight on the water.

Moondoggle is a phrase coined in the 1960s by those who were skeptical of any financial benefits derived from space travel. Those same people who have Velcro fasteners on their trainers and Teflon coating on their pots and pans, I assume. Or perhaps they don’t have any uses for freeze drying, memory foam, scratch resistant spectacles, wireless headphones, air purifiers, solar cells, cochlear implants, shoe insoles, water filters, GPS, shoe insoles, foil blankets, power tools, camera phones, and how many more do you want? Incidentally, some idiot once told me his rationale for saying the moon landings didn’t happen was that a survey revealed one in six agreed with him.

Blue Idioms

Several words have become part of the language in being used in phrases. Last time we looked at ‘green’ and now look at ‘blue’.

Blue blood is first seen to describe those of noble birth in 1809. It is not an English reference but one describing the old aristocrats of Castile in Spain.

Out of the blue, or a bolt from the blue, is first used in Thomas Carlyle’s writing entitled The French Revolution.

Blue, when referring to something risqué, is not recorded until 1840 and there is little evidence to explain why the colour was chosen. Several theories have been put forward, most often the colour of choice worn by ladies of the night.

Blue in the face, used to describe someone who is frustrated, is first recorded in 1864. Yet earlier it was said to be black and blue in the face, the earlier form seen from 1829.

Once in a blue moon is first used in the modern sense to describe a very long time in an anti-cleric flyer in 1528. But a blue moon is a real astronomical event and occurs, on average, every 33 months. As the lunar month is slightly shorter than a calendar month, the blue moon is simply a second full moon in a calendar month.

Monday blues originated in the US press in the 1830s, used to describe the hung over workforce returning to work after the weekend. More recently Blue Monday is the third Monday in January, said to be the most depressing day of the year.

Blue collar is first used in 1924, another of US origins, describing manual workers as opposed to white collar office workers.

Blue-eyed boy is first used in print in the novels of P.G. Wodehouse in 1919.

Blue ribbon is a misnomer used solely in the USA for many years. It was a mis-hearing of ‘blue riband’ and resulted in blue ribbons being awarded as prizes. Blue Riband had been awarded to the vessel making the fastest trans-Atlantic crossing when it was the only way to travel between the two continents. Blue Riband was borrowed in the early 20th century from the prize awarded in horse racing.

True blue has been used for centuries, certainly appearing in Chaucer, and likely only through the obvious rhyme. Yet it has not always had the same meaning. In the 15th century it was used to mean ‘sorrowful’; by 1788 it described women as either ‘pedantic’ or ‘learned’ depending upon context; while latterly it is a song by Madonna.

Feeling blue is simply the modern version of the earliest use of ‘true blue’, although there are records of ‘the blues’ from as early as the 16th century.

Blues and twos is a police reference to the blue flashing lights and the two tone siren used when attending an emergency.

Blue sky thinking seems to date from the 1940s and is based on the idea that the best work is done when the weather is fine or, possibly, the weather is perceived as better when working well.

Blue sky research is exactly the same as ‘blue sky thinking’ and seems to have developed at the same time.

Blue chip stocks are those which are a fairly safe bet and usually a buy-in to major companies.

Nobody had baby blues before 1892, when it first appeared in the Magazine of Poetry

Scream blue murder first appears around the late 19th and early 20th centuries. My research has often seen me reading old newspaper reports and I have often read of someone giving evidence at a trial or inquest and relating how they were first aware of the victim’s distress when they called out ‘you have murdered me’. I always wonder whether that was accepted as evidence as for surely you can’t be guilty of murder, while the victim is still breathing and screaming blue murder.

Turkmenistan Place Names Explained

Having blogged samples of my books on English place names and also examined the etymologies of the nations of the world and their respective capitals I thought it time I cast my net a little wider. As English place names share some links to other tongues it would be interesting to see if any of the elements contributing to our place names could be found elsewhere. Continuing an alphabetical tour of the world and a look at the largest Turkmenistan cities.

Ashgabat translates from the Persian as 'city of love' or 'city of devotion'.

Turkmenabat, which clearly refers to the people, was formerly known known Chharjvy, the Persian for 'four canals'.

Dasoguz is the Tyrkmen for 'stone spring'.

Balkanabat adds abad to the name of Balkan mountains. It was founded as Neftedag in 1933, this from the Russian neft dag or 'oil mountain'.

Yoloten translates as 'the way passes over'.

Marghab is a river which takes its name from the Murghab District.

Anua comes from the Persian and means 'new water'.

Geok Tepe comes from Turkmen and means 'blue hill or summit'.

Murgap comes from the Turkmen roots mur gap and describes 'the land with the place of water'.

Note the spellings of the places are English as the piece is written in English.

Colourful Language

With the long hours of sunshine most of the United Kingdom has been experiencing this week, I was drawn to the infinite number of colours picked out by the sunlight. I have never been able to understand the modern need to use foodstuffs for the names of colours, especially biscuit – not all biscuits are the same colour.

Examine a colour chart from the local hardware outlet and it reads more like a menu. However there are still the original colours and surely those cannot have come from household items. Hence I turned my attention to the etymology of the more traditional colours.

Red – is a Germanic word, which can be traced back to a Proto-Indo-European root reudh ‘ruddy’. The theoretical original European tongue used this solely to refer to hair colour.

Orange – surprisingly not used for the colour until 1540, previously this referred to the fruit and, prior to that, the tree. Just where the fruit and tree got the name is uncertain.

Yellow – comes from the Proto-Germanic gelwaz and Proto-Indo-European ghel ‘to shine’, and used for bright metals, particularly gold.

Green – another which can be traced to a Proto-Indo-European root where ghre means literally ‘grow’ and used to refer to the colour of living plants.

Blue – came to our shores from Old French blo meaning ‘pale, pallid, wan’ even ‘light-coloured, blond, discoloured’. Here the Proto-Indo-European is bhel ‘to shine or flash’.

Indigo – never a part of the rainbow before the early seventeenth century, this comes from the Spanish indico or Portuguese endego and a reference to the blue dye from India.

Violet – predictably this was named from the flower, first used as a colour in the late fourteenth century, this is ultimately from the Latin viola and derived from an early and unknown Mediterranean word.

Black – a word which has the identical root as the colour blue. Here the Proto-Indo-European bhel developed from ‘to shine, flash, burn’ in the sense of the residue left behind after a fire, that which had been ‘blackened’ or ‘burned’.

White – the Proto-Indo-European root here is kweit meaning ‘to shine’.

Gold – here the meaning is again ‘to shine’ but this time the reference is to metals.

Silver – a later word than gold and for very good reason. Whilst there is no doubt silver was used decoratively, the original reference was to ‘money’, and possibly prior to that to the smelting or refining of the metal.

Purple – originated as the name of the shellfish from which the colour was produced. The earlier etymology is uncertain but is certainly related to the Latin purpura which, in some contexts, was used to refer to ‘finery, splendid attire’.

Brown – ultimately the Old English brun shares an origin with the words ‘bear’ and ‘beaver’. The idea of a ‘brown or dark animal’ is also seen in the Greek phrynos, again meaning ‘the brown animal’.

Beige – not seen as a colour before 1879 it was used twenty years earlier to refer to ‘fine woolen fabric’ and prior to that from the Old French as ‘natural colour of wool and cotton’.

Cerise – again not seen before the nineteenth century and from the French cerise or ‘cherry’.

Chartreuse – came to be the name of a colour as it was likened to the pale apple-green colour of the liqueur of this name, itself derived from the monastery of a Carthusian order of monks, named from the mountain in the French Alps where the monastery was built.

Cyan – not seen as a colour in English until 1889, it is not an Indo-European word but related to the Hittite kuwannan or ‘copper blue’.

Ecru – is a French word, it is not seen in English before 1869, and means ‘raw, unbleached’.

Magenta – first used in 1860 and named after the Battle of Magenta in Italy. Here a combined French and Sardinian force defeated the Austrians shortly before the dye producing the colour was first produced.

Mauve – is a French word and not used in English before 1859. It comes from Old French and ultinmately from Latin malva, itself a reference to the mallow plant from which the dye was first obtained.

Taupe – is not seen in English until 1906, it comes from the French taupe meaning ‘a mole’, the colour of the mole’s skin being the same dark brownish-grey colour.

Puce – first seen in English in 1787, this is from the French puce meaning ‘flea’ and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European plou with the same meaning and seemingly seen as the colour of fleas.

There are also colours called Hooker’s Green, Fuzzy Wuzzy, Little Boy Blue, Meat Brown, Neon Carrot, New Car, Outer Space, Peru, Screaming Green, Shampoo, Waterspout, and Zomp, none of which I shall be attempting to explain.