# Knowing him, he'd get away with blue murder!



## Theseus (Nov 20, 2011)

How would this be neatly translated into Greek? Often the idiom is as Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable says of it:-
Blue murder. To shout blue murder. 
Indicative of terror and alarm rather than real danger. 
It appears to be a play on the French exclamation morbleu.

It is often used in the idiom 'screaming/yelling' blue murder' but it is not infrequently used as above viz. 'to get away with blue murder.'


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## daeman (Nov 20, 2011)

About "blue murder", by Michael Quinion:

*4. Questions and Answers: Blue murder*

_Q: From Evan Parry, New Zealand: _I’ve checked your World Wide Words dictionary, but the expression _blue murder_ doesn’t appear. A friend remarked about his child when she was restrained in a supermarket, _she screamed blue murder_. I know its meaning, but why _blue_, and why _murder_?

A: This idiom is largely restricted to Commonwealth countries. North Americans prefer to cry _bloody murder_, which is more expressive and easier to understand. Either way, it means to make a noisy and extravagant protest.

As long as the bite does not come in the form of double-digit inflation, it’s all sweetness. Cross that mark, and they’re all screaming blue murder. The middle-class loves a free lunch, subsidised healthcare and education.
​_The Hindustan Times_, 6 Aug. 2011.

​ Using colours as metaphors for emotion is probably as old as human language, though they’re deeply determined by culture. In English we have phrases such as _white with rage, green with jealousy, see red, yellow streak_ and _tickled pink_. The emotional associations of blue are more varied than those of most colours. It has among others indicated constancy (_true blue_), strained with effort or emotion (_blue in the face_), indecent or obscene (_blue movie_) and fear or depression (as in _blue funk_, which in the UK means to be in a state of fear but in the US to be depressed).

In an old entry, the Oxford English Dictionary puts _blue murder_ in a section that links it with hurtful things, particularly plagues or pestilences, which may come from an old superstition about candles burning blue as an omen of death. But it seems just as likely that it derives from the same sense as that in the English version of _blue funk_, which dates from much the same period — the early part of the nineteenth century.

_Bloody murder_ in its semi-literal sense is much older: it goes back at least to the sixteenth century:

There’s not a hollow cave or lurking-place,
No vast obscurity or misty vale,
Where bloody murder or detested rape
Can couch for fear but I will find them out.

_Titus Andronicus_, by William Shakespeare, c1591.

​ This sense was still the usual one in Britain in the period in which _blue murder_ appeared and remained so afterwards. The figurative meaning of _bloody murder_ is peculiarly American and began to appear in the 1860s, usually in the form _yell bloody murder_. There seems to be no direct link between the two phrases. In particular, blue murder doesn’t appear to be a euphemism for bloody murder.

This feline couplet is the earliest example I’ve so far found:

Till in the trap caught, by their tails both so taught,
Molrow and blue murder, they cried, sirs.

_The Cats, An Original Comic Song, by Michael Hall, in The Melodist, and Mirthful Olio: an Elegant Collection of the Most Popular Songs &c._, London, 1829. Taught is an old spelling of taut; molrow may be from miaow but is nearer in sense to caterwauling; one sense of the close relative molrowing is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “the practice of socializing with a disreputable woman”.

​ The expression must have been fairly common by then, because it turns up in another song in the same collection.

The association with murder came about because our instinct on being faced with violent assault is to shout loudly in fear. Here’s a case where the link is made explicit:

He was quite naked at the time, and screamed out “Murder,” when the prisoner said, “I’ll give you blue murder,” at the same time striking him repeatedly over the back, shoulders, and arms, until the handle of the whip broke in two.

_Morning Chronicle_ (London), 9 Jan. 1855.

​ However, most shouts of blue murder have been about more trivial matters and the expression has become a disapproving comment that points up the disparity between the amount of noise and the petty nature of the protest: “anyone would think you were being murdered, the noise you were making”.


For a neat rendering in Greek, I'll stop trying for now before I become blue in the face, and I'm too yellow to suggest anything yet.


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## Palavra (Nov 20, 2011)

I did not find this phrase in any dictionaries I looked in as such; reading Daeman's post, I think that it may be a combination of "get away with murder" and "cry blue murder", i.e. _raise hell_.

*cry blue murder*: _Informal_ to make an outcry
*get away with murder*: _Informal _to escape censure; do as one pleases​http://www.thefreedictionary.com/get+away+with+blue+murder

Therefore, I believe it is synonymous with "get away with murder", so I'd say «αυτός είναι ικανός για όλα», i.e. _he's capable of anything_, because I'm incapable of thinking anything else right now :)


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## nickel (Nov 20, 2011)

Να τα βλέπουμε σαν δύο (τουλάχιστον) ξεχωριστούς ιδιωματισμούς. Δηλαδή:
*scream* (or yell) *blue* (or North American *bloody*) *murder*
_informal_ make an extravagant and noisy protest: _if it gets into the papers, she’ll be down here screaming blue murder._
Ίσως: κάνω μεγάλη φασαρία
σηκώνω τον κόσμο στο πόδι

*get away with (blue) murder*
_informal_ succeed in doing whatever one chooses without being punished or suffering any disadvantage:some local authorities are letting estate agents get away with murder
κάνω του κεφαλιού μου
κάνω ό,τι μου καπνίσει

Στο παράδειγμα του τίτλου (που είναι κακή αγγλική σύνταξη: ποιο είναι το υποκείμενο του knowing;):
Συμφωνώ με το: είναι ικανός για όλα
Επίσης ένα λόγιο: δεν ορρωδεί προ ουδενός.
Έχω κι άλλα για αργότερα.


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## daeman (Nov 20, 2011)

Κι εμένα ο συνδυασμός με μπερδεύει. Αν ήταν σκέτο το ένα ή το άλλο, μπορεί κάτι να είχα σκεφτεί μέχρι τώρα, κι ας ήταν για μαγιά, όχι neat, yeast.

Το μόνο που σκέφτομαι σχετικό με τον συνδυασμό είναι το «λύκοι στα πρόβατα» (the boy who cried wolf, Theseus, but at first when he got away with it, before the locals got wind of his lies).


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## daeman (Nov 20, 2011)

Για το scream blue murder: *σκούζω λες και με σφάζουνε*. :scared:


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## Theseus (Nov 20, 2011)

*'Dodgy' syntax of 'knowing him'.*

It is in fact used commonly both in speech and literature and is known as the nominativus pendens. it is not unusual in Latin and there is a number of examples in A.C. Moorhouse's Syntax of Sophocles p.21. It seems to be a form of anacolouthon.
What would the Greek be for 'knowing him' in the title. Thanks to all for their help.


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## daeman (Nov 20, 2011)

For _knowing him_, a simple *ξέροντάς τον* or _*επειδή τον ξέρω* (*καλά*) _would suffice but - knowing what comes after in this case (assuming trickery in yelling blue murder) and depending on the context and tone - perhaps I would be more playful and say *ξέροντας τι κουμάσι είναι*.


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## daeman (Nov 20, 2011)

And joining the pieces together, if I understand correctly the meaning of the whole sentence, i.e. someone is so wily that he could even trigger a false alarm and get away with it: 
Ξέροντας τι κουμάσι είναι, τον έχω ικανό να σκούζει λες και τον σφάζουνε και όμως να γίνει πιστευτός.


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## nickel (Nov 20, 2011)

Μα γιατί επιμένεις να τον βάζεις να σκούζει; Ποια πρόταση είναι αυτή που έχει και τις δύο εκφράσεις; Του τίτλου η πρόταση δεν έχει καμιά σχέση με το scream blue murder.


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## daeman (Nov 20, 2011)

Γιατί νομίζω πως το _blue_ murder αυτή τη σημασία έχει, του unjustifiable outcry και του false alarm, να ξεσηκώνεις τον κόσμο για ψύλλου πήδημα, άσχετα αν συνοδεύεται από scream ή yell.


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## nickel (Nov 20, 2011)

Το _get away with blue murder_ δεν έχει καμιά απολύτως διαφορά στη σημασία από το _get away with murder_, απλώς επηρεάζεται από το _blue_ του άλλου ιδιωματισμού και το παίρνει κι αυτό βόλτα. 


Για το _knowing him_, επίσης:
Αν δεν κάνω λάθος,...

Και ναι, είναι γνωστό λάθος, όσο και το _between you and I_.


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## nickel (Nov 20, 2011)

Κάνει ό,τι γουστάρει και λογαριασμό δε δίνει.

(Τα βάζω σταγονηδόν γιατί αλλιώς θα τα ξεχάσω...)


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## daeman (Nov 20, 2011)

nickel said:


> Το _get away with blue murder_ δεν έχει καμιά απολύτως διαφορά στη σημασία από το _get away with murder_, απλώς επηρεάζεται από το _blue_ του άλλου ιδιωματισμού και το παίρνει κι αυτό βόλτα.
> [...]



Μα πες το ντε λίγο πιο νωρίς, που μ' έχει φάει κι εμένα αυτή η βόλτα που λες κι έχω μπλαβίσει απ' την προσπάθεια να το καταλάβω ολοσούμπιτο και να το αποδώσω κιόλας! :) 


Για το _scream_ blue murder τουλάχιστον, μπορώ να _σκούζω_, δάσκαλε;


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## Themis (Nov 20, 2011)

Δεν θα μπορούσα να πω τίποτα αν δεν τα είχατε αναλύσει τόσο ωραία. Η εντύπωσή μου είναι πάντως ότι το blue προσθέτει ένα εμβόλιμο στοιχείο σαρκασμού ή έστω μια περιπαικτική διάθεση. Επειδή δεν έχουμε τα ευρύτερα συμφραζόμενα, αδυνατώ να προτείνω οτιδήποτε. Αν όμως έχω δίκιο βάσει του γενικότερου πνεύματος του κειμένου, η απόδοση θα έπρεπε να το δείχνει. Να περιέχει ένα λογοπαίγνιο, έναν χλευασμό. Δεν συμβάλλω πολύ στο πρόβλημα, αλλά ο συμφυρμός των δύο εκφράσεων θα επέβαλλε γενικότερη εκτίμηση των συμφραζομένων.


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## nickel (Nov 21, 2011)

Του συγχωρείς τα πάντα.
Είναι ο τύπος που σε κάνει να του συγχωρείς τα πάντα.

(Εκεί εγώ...)


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## daeman (Nov 21, 2011)

Κι από κοντά το τσιράκι, κολλημένο στην κυριολεξία, και την πολυλογία:

Τον έχω ικανό μέχρι και φόνο να κάνει και να τη γλιτώσει!


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## daeman (Nov 21, 2011)

daeman said:


> [...]A friend remarked about his child when she was restrained in a supermarket, _she screamed blue murder_. I know its meaning, but why _blue_, and why _murder_?
> [...]


:twit:
Blue because the child was blue in the face with fake indignation*, and murder because most would consider it, fleetingly at least, in such a predicament. The father did, preemptively indeed, but it was too late.





Αυτό θα πει να σκούζεις για ψύλλου πήδημα, κι αιτία να 'ναι αλλουνού το πήδημα. 

*And I'd wager he got away with it, too.


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