Murder and tape?

[daz1969]

Why is murder blue and tape red?

[Grunty]

Don't know about blue murder, but red tape is exactly what it says. Lawyers tie up their bundles of papers with - red tape.

[Quizmonster]

The words �blue murder' appear in phrases such as �scream blue murder' or �get away with blue murder'. The idea comes from French. If something dreadful occurred, the French used to say �Mort Dieu!', meaning �God's death!' Over time, this altered euphemistically to �mortbleu/morbleu' and that translated as �blue death' or �blue murder' in 19th century English. The same use of �bleu' is seen in the French exclamation, �Sacr� bleu!' Nowadays, the phrases mentioned in the opening sentence above just mean �a lot of noise about nothing' and �something terrible'.

[heathfield]

And blue murder could be from someone yelling 'Murder!' till they're 'blue in the face'? Also reputed to come from the french swear-word 'morbleu', a corruption of 'morte de Dieu'.

[heathfield]

Sorry QM...the kettle was boiling as I was about to post!

[ugly_bob]

Mort Dieu? I always thought it was Mon Dieu - meaning My God.
I could well be wrong though - it happened once before, in 1983.

[Quizmonster]

No problem, H. Happens all the time...indeed, it happened to me this very day!

[Kingaroo]

Is "screaming blue murder" a more common expression in UK than "screaming bloody murder"?
In US, we don't use "bloody" the way you do, but I've defitnitely heard "bloody murder" more often than "blue murder."