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Re: bloody
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Hi Jansy
The OED says this is probably a myth (see below), but it's certainly a widespread one if so. Meanwhile, Bloody Mary was so-called because of the burnings of heretics during her reign (actually she burnt fewer Protestants than her successor Elizabeth I burnt Catholics, but the winners wrote the history) - and the cocktail apparently takes its name from her via the colour of the tomato juice.
Glad the knickers were helpful!
Emily
OED re etymology of "bloody" as an expletive:
The origin is not quite certain; but there is good reason to think that it was at first a reference to the habits of the bloods or aristocratic rowdies of the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th c. The phrase bloody drunk was apparently = as drunk as a blood (cf. as drunk as a lord); thence it was extended to kindred expressions, and at length to others; probably, in later times, its associations with bloodshed and murder (cf. a bloody battle, a bloody butcher) have recommended it to the rough classes as a word that appeals to their imagination. We may compare the prevalent craving for impressive or graphic intensives, seen in the use of jolly, awfully, terribly, devilish, deuced, damned, ripping, rattling, thumping, stunning, thundering, etc. There is no ground for the notion that bloody, offensive as from associations it now is to ears polite, contains any profane allusion or has connexion with the oath 's blood!
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The OED says this is probably a myth (see below), but it's certainly a widespread one if so. Meanwhile, Bloody Mary was so-called because of the burnings of heretics during her reign (actually she burnt fewer Protestants than her successor Elizabeth I burnt Catholics, but the winners wrote the history) - and the cocktail apparently takes its name from her via the colour of the tomato juice.
Glad the knickers were helpful!
Emily
OED re etymology of "bloody" as an expletive:
The origin is not quite certain; but there is good reason to think that it was at first a reference to the habits of the bloods or aristocratic rowdies of the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th c. The phrase bloody drunk was apparently = as drunk as a blood (cf. as drunk as a lord); thence it was extended to kindred expressions, and at length to others; probably, in later times, its associations with bloodshed and murder (cf. a bloody battle, a bloody butcher) have recommended it to the rough classes as a word that appeals to their imagination. We may compare the prevalent craving for impressive or graphic intensives, seen in the use of jolly, awfully, terribly, devilish, deuced, damned, ripping, rattling, thumping, stunning, thundering, etc. There is no ground for the notion that bloody, offensive as from associations it now is to ears polite, contains any profane allusion or has connexion with the oath 's blood!
---------------------------------
The all-new Yahoo! Mail goes wherever you go - free your email address from your Internet provider.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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