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Re: Varon

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Tuesday, January 22, 2002, 16:51
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.)