Re: Varon

Maarten wrote:

>Roger Mills wrote:
>>
>> Her eldest son went to Boodle's and White's [upper-class clubs]
>> Her second son blued everything and fled--
>> But imagine the Duchess's feelings,
>> When her youngest son went Red."
>>
>> I don't think I was mis-hearing "blew", which is US usage.  I think I've
>> encountered this use of "blue"in, perhaps, Evelyn Waugh.
>
>I am sure you understood it correctly. If we look closely, we see that each
>son is identified by a color: the oldest went to WHITE's, the second BLUEd
>everything and the last one went RED... I don't know the context of this
>poem, but it looks like a heavy form of symbolism to me (they are the
colors
>of the British flag, for instance).

Quite so.  That's one of the reasons I'm sure it was "blued" and not "blew"
or (horrors) "blewed"-- Noel Coward would never have penned such a
barbarism. I do wish I could remember where else I've seen it used in a
context that made the meaning clear.  (It's not in the Shorter OED for ex.,
my only good source.)