Arizona is one of 15 states with rules for Sunday liquor sales, a form of blue laws, according to the Phoenix newspaper. The columnist said that no one knows where the term "blue laws" came from. Some had thought the Puritans had printed the rules on blue paper, but that apparently isn't the case. .

I did search our site for a discussion of the origin of "blue Laws; while they are mentioned several times, I couldn't find a discussion of their origin. Snopes (in the link above) theorizes that: 1) the Reverend Samuel Peters may have invented the term in his 1781 book, General History of Connecticut where he describes onerous colonial laws; or 2) It could have been derived from an 18th century use of the word "blue," meaning "rigidly moral."

Thoughts?

I don't believe that the phrase appears in UK English - although we do have some equally stupid laws about Sunday trading. Fortunately most of them are rapidly disappearing and one of the benefits of the changing ethnicity of our society is that those to whom Sunday is not a "holy" day are often happy to work that day, thereby helping to avoid a possible staffing shortage.

I had come across the phrase somewhere but as Richard says it isn't part of UK English. I wasn't even sure what it meant let alone what the origin is.

blue laws

Snopes has this to say about the being printed on blue paper. I always assumed it had something to do with bluenoses trying to control people.

From the Wikipedia entry on "blue laws."

Contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence to support the assertion that the blue laws were originally printed on blue paper. Rather, the word blue was commonly used in the 18th century as a disparaging reference to rigid moral codes and those who observed them (e.g., "bluenoses", blue movies). Moreover, although Reverend Peters claimed that the term blue law was originally used by Puritan colonists, his work has since been found to be unreliable, and it is more likely that he simply invented the term himself.[3] In any event, Peters never asserted that the blue laws were originally printed on blue paper, and this has come to be regarded as an example of false etymology. Another version is that the laws were first bound in books with blue covers.

It seems most, if not all, authorities agree the phrase first appeared in print in Reverend Samuel Peters 1781 book. But why blue? Why not red, or green or yellow? Snopes says Peters may have made the term up or it may have "derived from an eighteenth-century usage of the word 'blue' as a disparaging reference to something percieved as 'rigidly moral ... ." But blue had other meaning, too, such as intoxicated, indecent, and obscene. Below are some definitions I've culled from the OED Online. Citations include one from Peters in 1781. All the others are from earlier dates, except one. The first citation for the phrase, To make the air blue (9b.),is from 1890, but I feel it was likely around for a long time before then.

blue, a.

• 1c. Said of a pale flame or flash without red glare (as of lightning, etc.); e.g. in phr. to burn blue, which a candle is said to do as an omen of death, or as indicating the presence of ghosts or of the Devil (perh. referring to the blue flame of brimstone: see De Foe, Hist. Devil ch. x.).
  1594 SHAKES. Rich. III, V. iii. 180 The Lights burne blew! It is now dead midnight.
  1601 Jul. C. I. iii. 50 The crosse blew Lightning.
  1611 BEAUM. & FL. Knt. Burn. Pestle, Ribands black and candles blue For him that was of men most true.
  1649 BP. REYNOLDS Serm. Hosea i. 54 In a mine, if a damp come, it is in vaine to trust to your lights, they will burn blew, and dimme, and at last vanish.
  1726 DE FOE Hist. Devil x, That most wise and solid suggestion, that when the candles burn blue the Devil is in the room.
  1824 BYRON Juan XVI. xxvi, His taper Burnt, and not blue, as modest tapers use..Receiving sprites.
  
   
• 1e. Often taken as the colour of constancy or unchangingness (? with regard to the blue of the sky, or to some specially fast dye). Hence true blue (fig.): faithful, staunch and unwavering (in one's faith, principles, etc.): sterling, genuine, real. See also 6b.
  a1500 Balade agst. Women Unconst. in Stow Chaucer (1561) 340 To newe thinges your lust is euer kene. In stede of blew, thus may ye were al grene.
  1672 WALKER Parm. 30 in Hazl. Eng. Prov., True blue will never stain.
  1674 N. FAIRFAX Bulk & Selv.[/i] 171 It being true blew Gotham or Hobbes ingrain'd, one of the two.
  1705 HICKERINGILL Priest-Craft II. viii. 86 The Old Beau is True-Blew, to the Highflown Principles [of] King Edward's First Protestant Church.
  
  
• 3b. Intoxicated. slang (chiefly U.S.).
  1818 M. L. WEEMS Drunkard's Looking Glass (ed. 6) 4 The patient goes by a variety of nicknames..such as boozy - groggy - blue - damp.
  1860 [see sense 10].
  
  II. transf. and fig.
  
  
• 5 c. Blue was formerly the distinctive colour for the dress of servants, tradesmen, etc., also of paupers, charity-school boys, almsmen, and in Scotland of the king's almoners or licensed beggars; cf. blue apron (see 13), BLUE-BOTTLE, BLUE-COAT, BLUE-GOWN.
  1609 B. JONSON Case Altered I. ii. (N.) [A serving-man] Ever since I was of the blue order.
  
   
• 6b. true blue: (see above 1e) specifically applied to the Scottish Presbyterian or Whig party in the 17th c. (the Covenanters having adopted blue as their colour in contradistinction to the royal red); but also with any use of blue, as in quot. 1860 where it = ‘staunchly Tory’.
  1663 BUTLER Hud. I. I. 191 For his Religion it was fit To match his Learning and his Wit; 'Twas Presbyterian true Blew.
  
  
• 8. fig. Often made the colour of plagues and things hurtful. blue murder, used in intensive phrases: see MURDER n. 3. Cf. senses 1c., 3b., and BLUE DEVIL.
  1742 YOUNG Nt. Th. v. 157 Riot, pride, perfidy, blue vapours breathe.
  1742 R. BLAIR Grave 628 Racking pains, And bluest plagues, are thine.
  1783 AINSWORTH Lat. Dict. (Morell) I. s.v. Blue, It was a blue bout to him, istud illi fatale fuit.
  1847 BARHAM Ingol. Leg., Black Mousquet. II. xv, Those mischievous Imps, whom the world..Has strangely agreed to denominate ‘Blue.’
  1856 BRYANT On Revisit. Country v, The mountain wind..Sweeps the blue streams of pestilence away.
  
  
• 9. colloq. a. Indecent, obscene. Cf. BLUE n. 14 and BLUENESS 4.
  1864 HOTTEN Slang Dict. 78 Blue, said of talk that is smutty or indecent.
  
  
• 9b. (See quot. 1890.)
  1890 FARMER Slang I. 256/1 To make the air blue, to curse; to swear; to use profane language.
  
  
• 10. Phrases (colloq.). till all is blue: said of the effect of drinking on the eyesight. by all that's blue: cf. Fr. parbleu (euphem. for pardieu.)
  1616 R. C. Times' Whis. v. 1835 They drink..Vntill their adle heads doe make the ground Seeme blew vnto them.
  1838 Fraser's Mag. XVII. 313 Cracking jokes and bottles, until all is blue.
  1840 MARRYAT Poor Jack xxiii, ‘The black cat, by all that's blue!’ cried the captain.
  1860 BARTLETT Dict. Amer., Blue..a synonym in the tippler's vocabulary for ‘drunk’. To drink ‘till all's blue’ is to get exceedingly tipsy.
  1867 SMYTH Sailor's Word-bk. s.v., Till all's Blue: carried to the utmost - a phrase borrowed from the idea of a vessel making out of port, and getting into blue water.
  
   
• 13. Special combinations or phrases.
  
  blue apron, one who wears a blue apron, a tradesman;
  1726 AMHERST Terræ Fil. xliii. 230 For, if any saucy *blue apron dares to affront any venerable person..all scholars are immediately forbid to have any dealings or commerce with him.
  
  blue laws, severe Puritanic laws said to have been enacted last century at New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.; hence fig.
  1781 S. PETERS Hist. Connecticut (1877) 44 Even the religious fanatics of Boston and the mad zealots of Hertford..christened them the ‘*Blue Laws’.
  
  blue blood: that which flows in the veins of old and aristocratic families, a transl. of the Spanish sangre azul attributed to some of the oldest and proudest families of Castile, who claimed never to have been contaminated by Moorish, Jewish, or other foreign admixture; the expression probably originated in the blueness of the veins of people of fair complexion as compared with those of dark skin; also, a person with blue blood; an aristocrat.

quote:

Snopes says Peters may have made the term up or it may have "derived from an eighteenth-century usage of the word 'blue' as a disparaging reference to something percieved as 'rigidly moral ... ."

Yes, in my original post with a link from Snopes, it says that the term "blue laws" first posited by Peters could even be "self-referential" because Peter's book, itself, was printed on blue paper. I sincerely doubt that, though.