People don't seem to know their colors.
Even in gardening magazines, they'll refer to a purple flower as blue. Or vice versa.
At the hospital in the OR, there are automatic doors operated by buttons, grey and orange. TWO different people told me on separate occasions to press the red one. Red != orange!
Yesterday I asked J to grab my hi-viz green vest. He handed me a black one. I said "No, the green one. The one right in front of you!" He said, "This yellow one?"
I looked at it and he was sort of right, it's fluorescent green so actually appears yellow. Or...IS it yellow? OK, I have to admit, it's more yellow than green. So why on earth did I call it green? Am I the one with the problem?
We went geocaching on a rails-to-trail and everytime a biker in hi-viz green flew by, I would ask J, "What color, green or yellow?" Every single one of them he called yellow, even the ones that were really tending toward the green part of the rainbow.
WTH. So I googled hi-viz green and sure enough, most of the results were bright yellow.
In this case I think my European husband is correct, and I don't have color issues. But for some reason in America we call yellow green.
If you know why, I'm dying to know.
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12 comments:
I'd call it yellow too!!! In the flower world, there is no real blue. So, various shades of purple are called blue.
Camryn, really! Cuz I've always tried to mention the color "periwinkle" to Germans and it does not exist. Their color palette has "Taube grau" - pigeon/dove grey, but that is not exactly periwinkle, which has more lavender in it. I'm frustrated by this. Like, how do oil/water color paint manufacturers deliver the right colors?
Thank you for the tip that blue/purple is meshed in the gardening world - how strange. I am at a loss, then, for what colors some of my flowers are in this country: )
Relevant link!
https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-didn-t-see-the-colour-blue-until-modern-times-evidence-science
Also, I was sitting there going "PFFFT! WHATEVER. That's yellow!" Until I covered up the reflective tape and looked at it just against the white.... and realized you're right. It can actually be considered green, but I'm just so used to think of it as a yellow safety vest that I automatically think of it as yellow.
Fascinating!
I would be calling that vest yellow but my brain would be screaming that it's yellow green--green with a high concentration of yellow. My mother was an artist, and I grew up very aware of a large a pallete of colors. Yes, to what Camryn said, but it depends on what kind of stickler you are. No periwinkle? How sad.
I recently learned that "shocking pink" is a relatively new thing: invented in 1931 by Italian designer Elsa Schiaperelli, it's a mixture of magenta + white.
Colors are cultural and tied to language as well as rods/cones in the eye, and apparently ancient languages didn't have blue! https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/211213-sky-isnt-blue
I've discovered that my husband and I see colors differently, so we started asking other people what color something was. Sometimes they saw it like me, sometimes they saw it like him. I think some of us have stronger receptors for certain colors. I see a yellow house, my husband sees a white house. I see my Mule as being construction orange, while he sees it as a pure red. Kawasaki calls it red. It's almost like he doesn't see yellow. Someone who doesn't see red, would see purple as blue.
I'd read the articles about the color blue and also the one about how blue animals are mostly not actually blue, but reflective.
As soon as I'd published this I realized the biggest color fail of my life - "red" hair. UGH.
NM, when the airlines misplaced our luggage and we had to describe it, I said "pink" and J said "brown" and it became the debate of our last US visit - dragging it out and asking the family members what color. It turns out - I think - it's taupe. So depending on the light can look brown or pink. Crazy!
Do you know the color of a grey horse in German? They call it mold. No joking, "Mag is a mold gelding" is what they say.
Reminds me of the dress that everyone on the internet was asking what colour it was. I always thought colour was colour and everyone saw it the same.
I concur on "blue flowers" with Camryn. As for the rest, it probably depends on how we see color as individuals. In which case, nobody is ever actually wrong. I mean, if you see yellow, it's yellow, and if I see green, then it is green.
I see yellow btw ;) A color wheel might clear things up!
Jacke, thank you for commenting! Shouldn't artists and eye-doctors be the authorities on what color is what? I mean, per culture? I'm so frustrated by this oddity. But it is a fun argument to have, if you're in good spirits about it. You're an artist. What is periwinkle, if you have to describe it to a German?
Periwinkle is a blue that leans towards (ever so slightly) lavender. Now how confusing is that?
The official definition: Periwinkle is a color in the blue and violet family. Its name is derived from the lesser periwinkle or myrtle herb (Vinca minor) which bears flowers of the same color. ... The color periwinkle may be considered a pale tint of blue or a "pastel blue".
I disagree, to me it has a definite slight infusion of violet. Thank you for thinking I'm an artist. More honestly I'm a paint slinger. :)
Jacke, I feel just as you do - it's more violet than blue. WTH - a "pale tint of blue" is simply LIGHT BLUE: ) Thank you!
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