Query: "blue laws"

[Fred Shapiro]

On Tue, 21 Mar 2006, Baker, John wrote:

>        There's no consensus on this.  The most plausible answer (IMHO)
> is that it's a straightforward collocation, where "blue" has the meaning
> "Puritanical" (see, e.g., blue, adj. 6, in M-W).  The theory that the
> term derives from the use of blue paper is very old and goes back at
> least to 1788, see my ADS-L post at
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0410A&L=ADS-L&P=R10100
> &I=-3.  However, nobody has ever found such a set of laws.

FWIW, I have studied this question and my conclusions accord with John's.

Fred Shapiro


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