Feeling blue - naval origin?

[Gitane]

Someone told me the other day that the expression”feeling blue” comes from the naval tradition of flying a blue flag when returning to home port if one of the officers of the vessel has died.

I have never heard or read about this one before and I do have a particular interest in naval history.

Has anyone heard of this expression’s origin?

 

[Old Bumbulum]

News to me.

 

[black mercury]

There was a time when sailing ships would fly blue flags when entering port if the captain or officer died on the journey. Don't think it was done by Royal Navy ships, more by merchant sailing ships, but could be corrected on that. If someone died on board it was tradition for sailing ships to lower its flag to 'half mast'. This left room for the flag of death which was invisible. If the ship was carrying diseased, sick and dying crew she flew a black flag which signaled others to keep clear. On a Royal Navy note, i was once told by a navy officer that in the days of sail the warship's crew didn't wear a uniform, they wore their own clothes, but it was tradition to tar one's hair to waterproof it and to grow pony tails. This led to the sailor's clothes around the shoulders getting covered in tar. So the crew fashioned a rectangular cloth with a hole for the head to wear to protect their clothes from the tar. This cloth was actually denim, which was originally used for tents in the new world, America, and off cuts could be obtained very cheaply. Denim is coloured blue, so we can see the connection between the navy uniform. Any you probably know about the captain of HMS Blazer issuing the crew with jackets on shore leave because he was not happy with his crew looking so untidy, the jackets had to be returned when the crew came back on board, hence where the word blazer came from. Anyway this is from the top of my head so i do stand corrected, all a bit useless but interesting anyway.

 

[Bru]

it being a sleepless night I've dug around and I cannot find a credible historical source for the blue flag of death story

It's repeated as gospel numerous times and seems to have its origins in the USA (but I wouldn't take that as gospel either!)

I'm inclined to think it's a myth but perhaps one based on a tradition somewhere in the world

I've certainly never, in the course of a lot of reading about the history of the UK merchant and royal navies, ever seen a reference to it in print

 

[Poignard]

Why are the Blues called the blues?
The name of this great American music probably originated with the 17th-century English expression “the blue devils,” for the intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal. Shortened over time to “the blues,” it came to mean a state of agitation or depression.4 Jan 2013
Why Is the Blues Called the 'Blues'? | HuffPost
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/debra-devi/blues-music-history_b_2399330.html

I lifted the above from the internet just now. I haven't read the full article because HuffPost wants to install cookies on my computer but presumably there are more details available therein.

 

[johnalison]

I don't know about the blue flag but there is a wonderful description of RN tradition following a captain's death in Captain Marryat's novel 'Peter Simple'. It's a long time since I read it but I remember reading the account of how the crew painted the ship's hull before their return from the West Indies. The author had been a naval officer and the stories in the book are presumably authentic.

 

[Gitane]

I don't know about the blue flag but there is a wonderful description of RN tradition following a captain's death in Captain Marryat's novel 'Peter Simple'. It's a long time since I read it but I remember reading the account of how the crew painted the ship's hull before their return from the West Indies. The author had been a naval officer and the stories in the book are presumably authentic.

Painting the ship is interesting, as the same source said that as well as raising a blue flag, a blue band was also painted around the hull. Again, I have never read or heard of this practice before, so I am unsure if this is true or not.

 

[maxi77]

The only blue I can remember was in the phrase 'life in a blue suit' meaning being in the RN.

 

[capnsensible]

Side stepping slightly, a zillion years ago I joined HM Submarine Valiant after the boat had returned from a deployment.
The casing of the submarine where the crew walk when the vessel is on the surface or docked, needs to be non slip, for the obvious reasons and black coz its a submarine. Whilst away, however and in order to preserve safety, the casing had been repainted in the only colour that was scrounged off a Surface Vessel......green.

On entering Plymouth the signal from the local Flag Officer was 'Get your grass cut'. Dont think he liked it.

I recall that the O Boats that operated down south during the Falklands campaign had a camoflage scheme.

But none of this has anything to do with the OP really.....:nonchalance:

 

[Stemar]

Reminds me of a comedy about a pink sub. I can't remember any details, but even as a kid I though it was crap, though I was probably too innocent to use the word.

 

[capnsensible]

I kinda remember that too!

It was Operation Petticoat with Cary Grant and Tony Curtis. Wowser!

 

[johnalison]

Painting the ship is interesting, as the same source said that as well as raising a blue flag, a blue band was also painted around the hull. Again, I have never read or heard of this practice before, so I am unsure if this is true or not.

In my post I missed out the critical word 'black', thus completely ruining the effect.

 

[Blue Sunray]

I recall that the O Boats that operated down south during the Falklands campaign had a camoflage scheme.

But none of this has anything to do with the OP really.....:nonchalance:

Not sure they did on Corporate but they most certainly did in the Gulf in the early '90s (shallow waters and all that).

 

[capnsensible]

Yes that was probably it, ta.

 

[grumpy_o_g]

The obvious origin for me would have been from "blue babies" or the symptoms of lack of oxygen but it's about the only thing I can't find mentioned as a possible origin. It dates back quite a few hundred years though - just everything I can find agrees on that.

 

[johnalison]

The obvious origin for me would have been from "blue babies" or the symptoms of lack of oxygen but it's about the only thing I can't find mentioned as a possible origin. It dates back quite a few hundred years though - just everything I can find agrees on that.

Babies with Fallot's tetralogy didn't survive very long until open surgery from around the '50s, so that seems unlikely. I would have thought that 'blue' as a sign of sadness etc. was just a reversal of our usual association of red with warmth, and a variation of the connection of blueness with cold.

 

[Hydrozoan]

The English Language and Usage Stack Exchange has an interesting entry on ‘feeling blue’ https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/41804/origin-of-the-of-the-phrase-feeling-blue.

Making the yards a’cockbill was a sign of mourning - ISTR vaguely that it features in some nautical novel or account (O’Brian, Conrad?) after a ship’s captain had committed suicide.

 

[TLouth7]

Any you probably know about the captain of HMS Blazer issuing the crew with jackets on shore leave because he was not happy with his crew looking so untidy, the jackets had to be returned when the crew came back on board, hence where the word blazer came from.

I think you will find that the term blazer comes from the scarlet jackets worn by members of the Lady Margaret Boat Club, the rowing club of St John's College.

Can't help OP I'm afraid, other than to say that my rapid google based research does not exactly throw up a widely held consensus for any origin.

 

[black mercury]

Yes they are sports blazers which came into use in late 19th century, HMS Blazer in question dates from 1845.

 

[LittleSister]

According to the New Shorter (i.e. 2 big volumes!) Oxford English Dictionary, blue, in the 'feeling blue' sense, dates from the mid 16th century: 1530 - 1569.

As that time was only the very informal beginnings of the Royal Navy, I can't see it deriving from a RN tradition.