"blue laws", 1755

[Joel S. Berson]

Changed to ' where the writer imagines a future newspaper praising
the revival of "our [ Connecticut ] old Blue Laws." '.

Joel

At 9/28/2010 12:15 PM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
>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.
>
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