Blues

Use this forum to discuss past Good Words.
User avatar
Dr. Goodword
Site Admin
Posts: 7417
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:28 am
Location: Lewisburg, PA
Contact:

Blues

Postby Dr. Goodword » Wed Mar 18, 2015 10:45 pm

• blues •

Pronunciation: bluz • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun, plural

Meaning: 1. (The blues) A state of melancholy, mild depression, sadness. 2. (The blues) A style of melancholy jazz based on southern black music, distinguished by a strong 4/4 rhythm, flatted thirds and sevenths, and a 12-bar structure. 3. A characteristic hallucination supposedly seen by a deliriously drunken person.

Notes: The final S on this word is to make it sound like a disease or syndrome in a class with measles, mumps, and pox (pock-s, as in the pock marks pox leaves on the skin). The adjective is the normal blue as in, "I'm feelin' kinda blue today."

In Play: Today's word is perhaps most closely associated now with the jazz style today, although the emotional sense antedates it: "Rusty Horne blew a mean blues cornet in the Catbird Combo for nearly forty years." The musical sense widely overlaps the emotional state known as 'the blues': "Now don't start singing the blues to me, Maribel, but I lost my job today." This husband must be feeling really blue today.

Word History: Today's Good Word is a reduction of "the blue devils", a phrase indicating a state of emotional dysfunction or despondency. Blue devil may be used in the singular: "The blue devil must have invented this machine!" Devil is cousin to German Teufel, Icelandic djöfull, Swedish djävul, and Danish djævel. In Greek we find diabolos "slanderer" from the same PIE source, used to render Hebrew satan in translating the Bible. Greek diabolos is a noun based on diaballein "to slander", comprising dia- "across" + ballein "to throw, hurl". Greek ballein shares an origin with English ball, the round object that we throw and not the dance. (Lest we make Albert Skiles blue from our lack of appreciation, let's all thank him now for recommending today's historically fascinating Good Word.)
• The Good Dr. Goodword

Philip Hudson
Great Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 2784
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2006 4:41 am
Location: Texas

Re: Blues

Postby Philip Hudson » Sun Mar 22, 2015 4:32 am

Here is a good rendition of the Birth of the Blues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8mofdyTG74 .
Follow the prompts to other artists singing and playing it.

We would be poor indeed if we didn't have blues music, a wonderful segment of the jazz family.
It is dark at night, but the Sun will come up and then we can see.

Perry Lassiter
Great Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 3333
Joined: Wed Jan 03, 2007 12:41 pm
Location: RUSTON, LA
Contact:

Re: Blues

Postby Perry Lassiter » Sun Mar 22, 2015 3:29 pm

The word always brings back the image of an alto sax player in Pirate's Alley by the Cabildo, playing long, lonesome blues in the night...
pl


Return to “Good Word Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 42 guests