"blue laws", 1755

[Shapiro, Fred]

Joel,

In the Wikipedia entry you refer to "since the American Revolution," but in 1755 there had been no American Revolution.  The 1755 source uses "Revolution" to refer to some imaginary British revolution, not the real American Revolution of 1775.

Fred Shapiro


________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Joel S. Berson [Berson at ATT.NET]
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 11:25 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "blue laws", 1755

1)  I have modified the "History" section of the Wikipedia article
"Blue Law," adding the 1755 appearance and amending the overly
limited description of the early Puritan laws (they prohibited not
only business activities but also recreation).

If someone  would tell me how to enter [[[Connecticut]]] so that the
word Connecticut ends up as a link enclosed in a single pair of
square brackets, I would be grateful!  At the moment I write this my
coding has put extraneous spaces surrounding it.

2)  What is the best hunch today for to the origin of "blue
laws"?  Has anyone associated "blue laws" with blue, adj., "being
"dismayed, perturbed, discomfited; depressed, miserable,
low-spirited"?  As in one might find in a sentence suitable for The
25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee: "I doubt not that I wore my
sadd-coloured cloaths for the Sabbath last Saturday ev'nin' because I
was so sad and blue thinking about our blue laws"?  ("Blue" in this
sense goes back to a1550, 1682, and 1783.)

Joel

At 9/24/2010 10:36 PM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
>As far as I know, that 1755 citation is the earliest known.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org