French folk etymology: bleu-jaune

[Victor]

If you go to the site I mentioned earlier and pick any of the products
on the left, it becomes completely obvious why the blue-yellow name is
appropriate. I don't think you'll need any printed linguistic evidence
after you see the actual rock. It really is blue and yellow, although
there are some variations. The piece in the museum could have been
culled from a single stratum.

    VS-)

Mark Mandel wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 9:21 PM, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:
>
>> If anyone asserts "blue john" > "bleu[e] jaune", he should present an
>> example of French "bleu[e] jaune" in appropriate sense, preferably
>> post-1772.
>>
>> I cannot refute either of these assertions, but where is the evidence
>> that "bleu[e]-jaune" was ever a French term for any mineral? (Of course
>> offhand factoids, presented e.g. in guidebooks or on the Web, are not
>> really evidence.)
>>
>
> I have no more formal evidence -- I think -- but the start of this
> thread quotes my older post, in which I referred to a label in an
> exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC:
>
>
>>> There's an exhibit there of "Pietre Dure", hard stone art in Europe:
>>> inlays, sculpture, mosaics, etc. One lovely item was a pair of perfume
>>> burners (61.101.1633,1634, catalog #138), made of "an intensely blue
>>> Derbyshire fluorspar commonly known as 'blue john'. ... It became
>>> popular among the nobility of France, where it was known as
>>> 'bleu-jaune'." (Mostly exact quotation with connecting bits of
>>> paraphrase.)
>>>

Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
> Here is (at a glance) a likely proximate etymon of "blue john".
>
> (Of course this says nothing about the possibility of French
> "bleu-jaune" or so FROM "blue john".)
>
> [supposedly 1639:]
>
> http://www.archive.org/stream/artofdistillatio00winerich/artofdistillatio00winerich_djvu.txt
>
> <<Afterworts or Wash (made by Brewers, etc.) called Blew John ....>>
>
> [supposedly 1737; at G. Books, 1760 ed.]
>
> http://www.fromoldbooks.org/NathanBailey-CantingDictionary/B/BLEW-JOHN.html
>
> <<BLEW-JOHN, Wash, or After-wort.>>
>
> [apparently 1663, quoted (at G. Books) in 1756:]
>
> <<After this I took the icy part of the ale, and thawed it at a fire,
> which was in all a pint of liquor ... very pale, and of a quick and
> alish taste, very much resembling that drink, which the brewers call
> Blew John.>>
>
> [1670, quoted (at G. Books) in 1911:]
>
> <<a sort of mighty strong beere called blew John.>>
>
> [1768, applied with this spelling to the fluorspar; the passage is
> quoted elsewhere also]
>
> http://www.apter-fredericks.com/memorable-pieces/913.htm
>
> "Blew" here is presumably an obsolete spelling of "blue" (I think). Why
> the drink was so called I don't know. Maybe "blue" just means "pale"
> (compared to other beer/ale)?
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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>
>

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