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Blue blood

Posted by ESC on May 28, 2003

In Reply to: Blue Blood? posted by Robert on May 28, 2003

: I have always understood this term to refer to those of the finanacial/cultural elite and had recently been told that the origin is from the merchants of indigo from the "new world". Apparently, indigo was one of the many plants that were "discovered" in the Americas, (potatoes, tomatoes, etc.) and its exceptional blue dye qualities were highly desired, making its merchants extremely wealthy and figuratively "blue-blooded". It seems that this term may be older though.

BLUE BLOOD - "An aristocrat or aristocratic person. During the centuries when the dark-skinned Moors ruled Spain, members of the old Castilian families were wont to say with pride that their blood had not been contaminated by Moorish or other foreign admixtures. The term they used was 'sangre azul,' which probably sprang from the fact that the veins of the fair-skinned are visibly blue." " From the The Dictionary of Cliches by James Rogers (Ballantine Books, New York, 1985). F

riends of mine were in the diplomatic corps for a while. They adopted a baby girl in Guatemala. When they were assigned to a new post in Spain, they reported back that their daughter was shunned by other children because she has dark skin. I found that surprising.

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