Why do people say....?

[HAnn521]

Why do people use the phrase "scream bloody murder"? and where did it come from?

[jno]

I think it dates from the days before police when people would set up a 'hue and cry' on the scene of a crime - shouting 'stop thief!' or even 'bloody murder!', trying to rouse everyone to hunt for the criminal.

[Quizmonster]

A more common version of the phrase is, surely, "scream blue murder". The words also appear in phrases such as �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'.
I suspect your 'scream bloody murder' is just a variant of 'scream blue murder'.

[Narolines]

As far as I know, the phrase "bloody murder" makes its first appearance in Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus" - not one of the Bard's finest creations, but he was a young and inexperienced playwright at the time!  Look in Act V Scene 2 if you really want to know more........