Everyone knows that something that happens “once in a blue moon” doesn’t happen often. Many of us assume the practice of calling the second full moon in a month a blue moon gave rise to the saying, “once in a blue moon”. Not so says Philip Hiscock from the Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore & Language Archive.
The term “once in a blue moon” precedes the use of the term for the second full moon in a month by nearly 400 years. But, its meaning has changed. Although we now refer to something happening “once in a blue moon” to mean it rarely occurs, its original meaning was “never” – because blue moons did not exist.
According to the article Hiscock published on Sky and Telescope , the change in meaning for the phrase “once in a blue moon” occurred when we adopted the term to refer to the second full moon in a month. Until this time blue moons didn’t exist, making the phrase and expression referring to the impossible..
For now, something that occurs “once in a blue moon” does happen, but it isn't likely to occur often.
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