A Red Devil or the Deep Blue Sea? Quiz

Answer: Red

"The red-carpet treatment"

We must go all the way back to 458 B.C. to a line in Aeschylus's play "Agamemnon" to find the first reference to rolling out the red carpet as a greeting. Clytemnestra offers such a welcome to her husband Agamemnon when he returns from Troy, even though red carpets were supposed to be only for gods, so things do not go well for the titular king.

The sense of hubris was lost in Western culture by the time of the Renaissance. A red carpet was rolled out for President James Monroe in 1821 when he disembarked from a riverboat without incurring divine wrath. Nowadays, in the United States, red carpets are most strongly associated not with the Presidency but also with the Academy Awards.

Answer: Blue

"Blue blood"

It's been used since about 1827 to refer to noble English families, but it comes directly from the translation of Spanish 'sangre azul'. Certain Castillian families began using the term in the early 19th century to indicate that their 'sangre azul' had no impurity, specifically from Moorish or Jewish ancestry, hidden somewhere in the family tree. It probably also meant that their skin was fair enough to see their blue veins.

Answer: Blue

"Bluestockings"

Although "bluestocking" came to refer to intellectual or literary women, it originally referred to a man. One Benjamin Stillingfleet attended a mid-18th-century English literary circle wearing his blue worsted wool stockings, a distinctly casual item of clothing at the time, at the insistence of hostess Elizabeth Vesey who wouldn't hear of his turning down her invitation because he had nothing appropriate to wear. "Bluestocking" eventually extended to include both male and female participants at such events. Later, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it had become a term of oppobrium used against women who engaged in intellectual pursuits. By the late 20th-century, however, it had lost much of its sting, and it started to be reclaimed by some feminists, at least in a light-hearted manner.

Answer: Red

"Better dead than red"

This popular slogan emerged during the Cold War, when the color red was associated with the international workers' movement, consequently with Communism and ultimately totalitarian anti-capitalist governments. During the 1980s, activists in the nuclear disarmament movement reversed the slogan to "better red than dead", which is to say, better to be Communist or socialist, or at least tolerate such sociopolitical systems, and live in peace than to be dead from a nuclear war which neither side would win.

Answer: Blue

"The wild blue yonder"

It can refer to the sky and to flight or to anyplace far away and mysterious and promising to be a daring new enterprise. And indeed, heavier-than-air flight was certainly that in the early twentieth century. In 1939 Robert Crawford wrote a song for the Cleveland Air Races that opens with the line, "Off we go into the wild blue yonder / Climbing high into the sun!" The U.S. Air Force adopted it as its official song and retitled it, "The U.S. Air Force".

Answer: Red

"Red tape"

Possibly Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, desiring to reform the management of his empire, was the first to use red tape to bind dossiers that were the highest priority to be discussed by the Council of State. In 18th-century Britain and colonial America, official and legal documents of all sorts were bound in red tape, and by the middle of the century "red tape" was being used to refer to excessive paperwork and other administrative burdens that obstructed more than served efficiency in government. "Cutting the red tape" is something politicians often promise to do, and like many a weight-watcher at the beginning of a diet have strong intentions but weaker follow-through.

Answer: Red

"A red rag to a bull"

It is a common belief that the color red infuriates bulls, and so bullfighters' capes have traditionally been red. In reality, the color has nothing to do with it! Rather, it is the movement of the flourishing cape that attracts or provokes the bull.

Answer: Red

"Red-headed stepchild"

Red or ginger hair is already a less-common genotype than brown or blonde, so if differently-colored hair parents have a red-headed child, unfaithfulness is suspected. And then there is the unfortunate reality that stepchildren have historically faced abuse from the unrelated parent and siblings in the family (and maybe extended relatives, too). So, it is thought, Heaven help someone with both these things going against them! And so a red-headed stepchild can refer to any person or entity or idea or project that is unwanted or neglected.

The term probably originated in the United States.

Answer: Blue

"Blue-eyed boy" or "blue-eyed girl"

Quite the oppositie of those red-headed stepchildren, blue-eyed boys/girls are those who are treated especially well, with great favors and hopes bestowed upon them (even if their eyes are a different color). The Oxford English Dictionary claims that the earliest use of this idiom is by P.G. Wodehouse in 1919. A similar phrase is "fair-haired boy/girl".

In the U.S. more so than the U.K., "blue-eyed girl" may refer to someone who is a bit of an ingenue.

Answer: Blue

"Blue Monday"

Generically, "blue Monday" is that feeling of depression, gloom, or dread that workers (especially if they dislike their jobs) may experience at the beginning of the workweek, in any month or season.

Specifically "Blue Monday" with a capital 'B' is the third Monday in January, which UK travel agency Blue Sky publicized in 2005 to describe what Cliff Arnall, a university tutor, believed is the most depressing day of the year. It allegedly takes into account weather at that time of year, but in reality it doesn't really seem to have any basis in science. Nonetheless, the idea has really caught on culturally in the UK as well as in other English-speaking countries.

"Blue Monday" is also the name of a synth/pop tune by the group New Order that gained a large following after its first release in 1983. New Order continued to update and re-release the song multiple times, well into the twenty-first century.