once in a blue moon

Blue is always different from yellow, for example: depressed (the blues), where yellow is gay, loyal (true-blue), where yellow is cowardly, and the like. Blue has a similar meaning to yellow about once in a blue moon.

Marshall Sahlins, quoted by John Gage in the essay Colour and Culture, from Colour: Art & Science edited by Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, 1995.

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