Full moon

[LukkyKnight]

not just that, but a blue moon (as in: once in a...) tonight. A full moon for this holiday hasn't happened on Halloween in something over 40 years now even though there's a full moon 1 of 28 days... so we are BOUND to see some things that are unexpected today owing to the powerful lunar influence. If you're lucky enough to capture it with your camera, please feel free to add it here.

 

[juicylips]

Halloween Full Moon

There isn't suppose to be another full moon on Halloween until the year 2020.

Don't know about it being blue

Cassidy

 

[curvacious]

JL--I've always understood a blue moon to be a second full moon within one calander month, so by that definition, it is a blue moon.
What do others think a blue moon means?

 

[LukkyKnight]

JL--I've always understood a blue moon to be a second full moon within one calander month, so by that definition, it is a blue moon.
What do others think a blue moon means?

That's it, in terms of the origin of the phrase... though why it's called blue I've no idea

 

[PowerOfOne]

Origins of blue moon

According to Philip Hiscock (love that name don't you?) of MUN Folklore and Language Archive, the following is the meaning of the term "Blue Moon".

The earliest references to a blue moon are in a phrase remarkably like early references to the moon's "green cheese." Both phrases were used as examples of obvious absurdities about which there could be no argument. Four hundred years ago, if someone said, "He would argue the moon was blue," the average sixteenth century man would take it the way we understand, "He'd argue that black is white." This understanding of a blue moon being absurd (the first meaning) led eventually to a second meaning, that of "never." To say that something would happen when the moon turned blue was like saying that it would happen on Tib's Eve (at least before Tib got a day near Christmas assigned to her). Or that it would be on the Twelfth of Never.

But of course we all know there are examples of the moon actually turning blue; that's the third meaning--the moon visually appearing blue. When the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa exploded in 1883, its dust turned sunsets green and the moon blue all around the world for the best part of two years. In 1927 a late monsoon in India set up conditions for a blue moon. And the moon here in Newfoundland was turned blue in 1951 when huge forest fires in Alberta threw smoke particles up into the sky. Even by the mid-nineteenth century it was clear that although visually blue moons were rare, they did happen from time to time. So the phrase "once in a blue moon" came about. It meant then exactly what it means today--that an event was fairly infrequent, but not quite regular enough to pinpoint.
<Yawn>

 

[Guest]

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