Tag Archive

Note: this was a quick impromptu attempt to get something off my mind, after I heard a podcast on the difficulties of dictionaries to define color.

They say one shouldn’t discuss religion or politics at the dinner table but I would add color as well. People get awfully touchy about color, particularly what is name is that color before us. I recall a pleasant game of dominoes in Palm Springs resulting into ructions over whether the shot glasses were cyan or turquoise.* Alcohol was a factor as were the fighters viz. four gay dudes. I have never seen a group of straight guys arguing whether the lawn chairs are purple or lavender.

The trouble with color is everyone has an opinion what it is. Scientists define color based on the frequency of light waves. For example indigo is between two specific wavelengths. Thems in the arts (and people of that crowd) see color along a spectrum of light to dark and now there is intensity/saturation to deal with as well. One man’s indigo is another man’s dark blue which is another’s light aquamarine. Oh the pain.

As a boy I was bewildered and perhaps a bit amused by the sometimes ridiculous names on paint chips at the local hardware store. Who makes these names I wonder, and are they really proper color names? Someone ought to be in charge shouldn’t they. Also in my youth who was in charge of color names was clear: Crayola crayons. They say growing up shatters one’s faith in humanity and this was illustrated by the horror to hear Crayola periodically changed the names of the crayons. This was like my late mother, whose name was Susan, announcing she was now on going to be called Mabel. No, she is Susan. My favorite crayon was ‘Prussian Blue’ which is now called ‘Midnight Blue’ and I have never forgiven them for changing it.

Even catalogs are fickle. The Lands End catalog apparently doesn’t know or can’t say the “Y” word viz. yellow, but uses all sorts of words to describe a man’s yellow polo shirt otherwise. Old gold was popular for a while as was maize, although that one was nice. I remember as a boy looking at the U of M flag and saying how pretty was the yellow and blue only to have the entire family say as one it was maize. Looks yellow to me, but I wasn’t going to be ostracized over yellow.

I went into hysterics hearing ‘grey’ and ‘gray’ are not just American and British spellings of the same (lack of) color but are actually different colors. I didn’t hear what was the difference as I had already gone into a swivet to write my congressman or set fire to a public building. Gray, by the way, is my least favorite color, no matter how you spell the dreary thing. I am in lifelong one man battle against all things gray/grey, painting the world in bright bold colors, no matter what you call them, or if you insist on spelling it as colour.

Perhaps we should all agree the names of colors are arbitrary and personal and what one calls this shade of blue is a personal choice and not worth fighting over.

Just don’t call turquoise cyan it is not and Prussian blue is not Midnight blue no matter what PC liberal rubbish board members at Crayola say. Them’s who say otherwise are itching for a fight and can of Sherman Williams dumped over their head.

*They were cyan; do not dare to question this.