mánudagur, maí 26, 2008

blár

Always the same on Sunday evenings. One of the public radio stations plays Bluegrass until dawn, old time Bluegrass punctuated with halting commentary by an un-radio-seeming announcer. The other station plays Blues.

Apparently, Bluegrass is named after a special band, the Bluegrass Boys, and their bluegrass comes from the region where the actual bluegrass Poa pratensis grows. The Blues are named for the metaphorical blue color of sadness, which, it seems, is quite old -- even as old as 1385.

Blue has a strange history in English and elsewhere. The PIE base *bhle-was meant yellow here and blue there, a light color either way. In Old Norse blár was black here and blue there, pitchy in either case.

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