Blue blood and blue princes

[winkingstar]

I was a reading a book today, in Spanish (I'm reading Spanish again! yay!), and I came across the phrase "sangre azul" (literally "blue blood"). So then I wondered about the English phrase and how it came to mean people of the aristocracy. Technically everyone's blood is blue when it's inside them; it only turns red when exposed to the air, hence

Comments

[monkey_junkey]

Wow! That's a really cool fact! Now I hope it comes up in a pub quiz sometime :) If you've got more etymology tidbits I'd love to hear (or read) them!

[winkingstar]

The OED is possibly my favourite book ever. I love finding what's hidden in the history of words and phrases! :D

There's a few more on my OED tag and I wrote about some cool words on a work post once, too.

[lavvyan]

Technically everyone's blood is blue when it's inside them; it only turns red when exposed to the air, hence why your veins are blue not red.

See, I didn't even know that. Fascinating indeed!

[winkingstar]

I am a librarian; I am just full of random fascinating facts! :D