Colour Terms

[trekkiedane]

thestrangequark wrote:

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I definitely use more specific color terms, and feel lucky that my native language has so many creative color terms (the number of color terms varies from language to language with some having only two: dark and light).

But how large a percentage of your fellow natives actually understand all these specific colour terms? -are you able to use any of them in a sentence and be understood by all?

[thestrangequark]

trekkiedane wrote:

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But how large a percentage of your fellow natives actually understand all these specific colour terms? -are you able to use any of them in a sentence and be understood by all?

In most cases, yes. Though some have more of a vague understanding than others. I think the average native English speaker would have a fairly good idea (though sometimes varying from other individuals) of where on the color spectrum terms like, umber, puce, obsidian, maroon, etc belong, even if they're rarely used outside of art supplies stores and lame fashion catalogues. Then there's the fact that a lot of these colors are named after things we see; you know aquamarine is going to fall in the blue/green spectrum just by the name, and the same goes for salmon, coral, aubergine, chocolate, cream, sage and many more. Add to that that a lot of the modifying adjectives often are said with a more general color term following like: Prussian blue, cerulean blue, sea foam green. Naturally, vocabulary varies from individual to individual, but I think most people have at least some idea of the color being described.

[trekkiedane]

I've always found it funny just how many English words there are to describe what we here just call brown - and I've always wondered if that is due to the infamous English cuisine...

Outside catalogues, the colour-names used in Danish are pretty much like the guy-scale in the OP, sometimes you might throw in a 'light-' or 'dark-' though.
And of course descriptives like egg-shell, snow, sand are used as well -but mostly in conversations between women. (!)

I must confess that I've had some great, if rather strange, encounters that I wouldn't have had had I understood all the English names for colours though; hanky-code.



BTW:
Maraschino is a clear liquor! -why is it also the name of a RED hue?

[thestrangequark]

Because of maraschino cherries.

[trekkiedane]

Why not call it cherry then -same colour when you add Maraschino to them!

[MacLeod]

In general terms I'll use red/blue etc.. with maybe a preface of bright/dark/light etc.. i.e. Bright Red.

I will occasioanly use terms like Navy Blue, Teal, Maroon, But once it starts going into a name for a lighter shade of say Teal, nope it's Teal

[Trekker4747]

trekkiedane wrote:

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Why not call it cherry then -same colour when you add Maraschino to them!

Maraschino cherries have a bright, candy-colored red to them where as "regular" cherries are darker. Many of the color terms on the above chart, to me, read like the names of color swatches you'd get at Home Depot and not -in my mind- the name of "real colors."

I'd never call a color red as "Maraschino" and I'd consider "cherry red" to be, well, a sort of deep-red color like non-candied cherries are. (The type you'd buy in the produce bin and not in a jar.)

I would, mostly, agree men are less likely to divide their colors up into specific names and women do -probably because women tend to be a bit more visual. Not to say that men can't tell the difference between two types of red just that in most cases there's little need to make such a distinction.

Unless you're talking about cars. When you're talking about cars all bets are off and different colors have different names and there are distinct differences between a candy-apple red Mustang and a fire-red Camaro.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

trekkiedane wrote:

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Why not call it cherry then -same colour when you add Maraschino to them!

Food color sometimes has no logic. Why do you think they call blueberries that name? They're purple...

in fact, why is there no blue food? Think about it.

[trekkiedane]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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Food color sometimes has no logic. Why do you think they call blueberries that name? They're purple...

in fact, why is there no blue food? Think about it.

Aaaargh - that's not helping any!!!
_

All this talk (quoting) about Maraschino cherries actually put me in the mood for a drink

[Locutus of Bored]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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Food color sometimes has no logic. Why do you think they call blueberries that name? They're purple...

in fact, why is there no blue food? Think about it.

Well, there's blue corn and blue potatoes and all their derivatives, but they look more purple to me, too.

[trekkiedane]

^So, basically we're back at there are no blue foodstuffs! - ?

(Except for Blue Curaçao and Romulan ale -one of which is artificial and the other imaginary )

[Locutus of Bored]

The corn chips and mashed potatoes that come from them look blue (sometimes), just not the corn and potatoes themselves.

[Miss Chicken]

Earlier in the thread I said I don't have many terms for orange but I have realised that I don't have many for yellow either (yellow, lemon, gold and maybe very occasionally saffron). I would add amber to terms I use for orange.

[RoJoHen]

Locutus of Bored wrote:

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I've never seen maroon described as anything other than a shade of red.

This is quite true. Maroon is NOT purple.

[trekkiedane]

^But it can easily look brown! -as it does to mee in this chart.