In German-speaking countries used description for a intoxication - "someone is blue", which means that he is drunk. "To be blue" is the corruption of a Yiddish-Hebrew expression for "to be in the nothing". According to another version, this goes back to a work-related break in the wool dyeing industry. The wool was dyed with an air-blueing dye (indigo), left in the dye bath over Sunday to dry on Monday. On Mondays the journeymen could thus "turn blue" (indulge in idleness). According to the old rule of the trade, urine was added to the dye broth to improve the colour development, whereby the colouring was allegedly even better if the dyers had drunk a lot of alcohol. See also under alcoholism.
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