The ‘Monday Blues’ is a phrase that has been around since the beginning of the five-day work week.  Why ‘Monday blues’, and why blue?

Blue was first used only as a color in English, and people started to associate it with many different emotions, meanings, memories, attitudes, etc.

The definition of Monday Blues:  “The low-spirited, cool, annoyed, sad mood of those workers and students who feel that a mundane weekday is arriving to force them into going back to work or school.”

Why ‘Monday Blues’ uses the color blue

Many of the associations with ‘blue’ are negative. For example, her hands were blue with cold:  (slightly blue because of the cold).

• If you say or shout something until you are blue in the face, you are wasting your efforts because you will get no results; You can tell her to tidy her room until you are blue in the face, but she won’t do it.
• If something happens out of the blue, it is completely unexpected: One day, out of the blue, she announced that she was leaving.
• Very rarely: My sister lives in Alaska, so I only see her once in a blue moon.
• To show your annoyance about something, especially by shouting or complaining very loudly: He’ll scream blue murder if he doesn’t get his way.
• Feeling or showing sadness: He’s been a bit blue since he failed his exams.
• A type of slow, sad music, originally from the southern US, in which the singer typically sings about their difficult life or bad luck in love: Billie Holiday was famous for singing the blues.
• Have the blues: to feel sad
• Blue-collar: describes people who do physical or unskilled work in a factory rather than office work.

When the word ‘Monday’ serves as a metaphor – 2 examples:

• Monday Blues: the way people feel after the weekend when they do not want to go to work or school (“I’ve got that Monday morning feeling.”)
• Monday-morning quarterback: Someone who says how an event or problem should have been dealt with by others after it has already been dealt with.