| 词汇 | bluegrass |
| 词源 | bluegrass. Whether Poa pratensis or bluegrass was brought here from Europe or was here long before the first white set- tlers came is a matter of opinion among laymen if not scientists. The late John Ciardi discussed the question in Good Words to You (1987): Various Kentucky historians . . . including Dr. Eslie Asbury, surgeon, raconteur, and well-known breeder of race horses, insist that the bluegrass was there when the first white settlers reached Kentucky . . . I have driven across Kentucky many times, even on the Bluegrass Highway, without seeing any but green grass. A number of natives have assured me that I have seen only cropped pastures, and that the blueness of the bluegrass becomes visible only when the grass is allowed to go to seed, the seed covering having a distinctly blue cast . . . Others have added that the blueness of bluegrass is visible only when the sun is low and a soft wind tosses the grass . . . I choose to agree with Dr. Asbury, who attributes the blueness (in season) to the small blue flowers this grass bears. Even in season, they are not commonly visible because the grass is usually cropped. Another theory holds that bluegrass takes its name from a pest grass that settlers on the Atlantic coast so named because its leaves were distinctly bluish in color. When these settlers moved into what is now Kentucky they found a grass, of about the same size and shape as the bluegrass previously discovered, and gave it the same name, which we still use today. See bluegrass state. |
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