It is always interesting to learn how words and phrases evolve especially ones that include color. The term Bluestocking now accepted to mean “ a women of pedantic** literary tastes” is a term that has an especially interesting evolution.
One of my favorite sellers of books and bookish things Bas Bleu has an entertaining article explaining how the words blue and stockings came together and why that is excerpted here.
“Scholars tell us that the relationship between society and stockings goes as far back as the 1400s, when an elite salon of learned Venetians were labeled della calza (literally “of the stocking”) because of their elaborately embroidered leg coverings...
By the late 1500s, the term bas bleu (bas, stocking; bleu, blue) emerged to describe women with literary aspirations...
The English term “bluestocking” meaning a literary woman evolved in the mid-to-late 1700s. Women of society were beginning to express their boredom with being sent off to do their embroidery, rather than being invited to engage in conversation with the men...
Although many prominent men of letters frequented the early bluestocking gatherings — and, in fact, Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet is said to be the first person to have worn blue stockings to a meeting — Bluestocking came to be associated with women.”
**For those of us unfamiliar with the word I’ll save you having to look it up; Pedantic is an adjective meaning “Characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for book learning and formal rules: a pedantic attention to details” according to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language.
See more about blue at My Lens: All About Blue
Blue Socks pictured from "Knitting the Blues"
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