Blue Blood的由来

西班牙语sangrea zul的直译，原指古老的卡斯提尔（Castile）家族，据说该家族从未与外族通婚，如此导致的结果是，比起各族通婚后的子女，他们的皮肤更白—因此血管也就显得更蓝。

但也有出身高贵者为人不势力—至少在小说里。弗吉尼亚•伍尔夫（Virginia Woolf）在《奥兰多》（Orlando）中写道：

Here, indeed, we lay bare rudely, as a biographer may, a curious trait in him, to be accounted for, perhaps, by the fact that a certain grandmother of his had worn a smock and carried milk pails, Some grains of the Kentish or Sussex earth were mixed with the thin, fine fluid which came to him from Normandy. He held that the mixture of brown earth and blue blood was a good one. Certain it is that he had always a liking for low company…as if there were the sympathy of blood between them.

这儿，确实，作为传记作家，我们会粗暴地揭穿他奇怪的特质，这很可能因为他祖母曾是穿着工作服提着奶桶的体力劳动者。他讲肯特郡的气质或者苏塞克斯的本色，与诺曼底那淡淡的优良的血统混合起来。他相信褐色的土壤与蓝色的血统混合起来肯定很好。事实上他总是喜欢同底层的人们为伴……好像自己和这些人之间有种血亲关系一样。