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| WORD HOUND By Jan Haber |
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THE WORD
HOUND What is
a blue moon? Naming the 2nd full moon in a month the blue moon is often passed off as old folklore, though it first appeared in 1946, or so says Philip Hiscock, of the Folklore & Language Archive at the University of Newfoundland. He says he has queried hundreds of experts but can authenticate no earlier source. There are other definitions of blue moon. Linguists agree that references to blue moons have been around for hundreds of years. According to one authority, if you said, "He would argue the moon was blue," to the average 16th century man, he'd take it the way we understand, "He'd argue that black is white." A blue moon was an absurdity; to say something happened once in a blue moon meant it never happened. Fast forward to the 19th century when particles of dust in the atmosphere following the massive 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, the Indonesian volcano, turned sunsets green all over the world and the moon looked blue for close to two years. In 1927 a monsoon in India created conditions for another blue-appearing moon, as did a huge forest fire in Canada in 1951. The linguistic impact of these events turned never into rarely. An event that happened once in a blue moon began to mean one that occurred fairly infrequently. "Meaning," as one of our references puts it, "is a slippery substance." As bartenders already know, there is a mixed drink called Blue Moon made of equal parts Blue Curaçao, Amaretto and Irish Cream, layered in a shot glass. Elvis Presley and Bill Monroe fans know of songs which use blue moon as a sad symbol of loneliness. For a happy ending, the lost love returns and the blue moon turns to gold. Apart from the blue moon this month, occurring July 31, 2004, look for one on June 30, 2007, and others on Dec 31, 2009 and Aug 31, 2012. Moon facts Comments / questions for The Word Hound can be e-mailed to info@nyackvillager.com
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