A story of ‘blue’ (Not blues!)

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JaneEyre
Posts: 4843
Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 1:04 pm

A story of ‘blue’ (Not blues!)

Post by JaneEyre »

My husband and I have had many funny misunderstanding in the past when talking on some kind of colours, myself defining them as blue, and him as green. I know since a long time that some kind of tribe in North Africa did not have a word for ‘blue’, but it seems they were not the only ones!

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/what- ... lor-2015-2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It correlates with the fact for example that the Inuits have many words for ‘snow’ while we do not as we do not need to know the subtle differences!

By the way, but I couldn't see the outlier square in the picture of the research project! :lol: :lol:
modernista
Posts: 302
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2010 12:03 pm

Re: A story of ‘blue’ (Not blues!)

Post by modernista »

Fascinating! Couldnt see the outlier either.
Stroller
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Joined: Thu May 17, 2012 9:39 am

Re: A story of ‘blue’ (Not blues!)

Post by Stroller »

Interesting article. I can't explain why, but I was able to pick out the outlier straight away.

Chuffed to have a very hidden new talent... :D
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mike1880
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Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2008 10:51 pm

Re: A story of ‘blue’ (Not blues!)

Post by mike1880 »

JE, I'm blaming you for making me waste most of a day reading the article then listening to the programme (the least interesting bit of the day TBH!) then following some links as you do...

The evolution of colour words in language was the most interesting bit for me (although modern thinking has a less clear cut view than the article suggests...but anyway I've downloaded an academic article to wave at wife or daughter the next time "blue or green" or Homer come up in conversation :) ), but tetrachromacy in humans looks to me like a complete load of hooey.
JaneEyre
Posts: 4843
Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 1:04 pm

Re: A story of ‘blue’ (Not blues!)

Post by JaneEyre »

Stroller wrote: Chuffed to have a very hidden new talent... :D
Congrats to be amongst the happy few! :wink:
mike1880 wrote: The evolution of colour words in language was the most interesting bit for me

I think that the article’s title is very misleading.
And there are a few mistakes too. The Greek did have the word kuaneos (‘dark blue’), which gave the word 'cyan' in English (and French) in the late 19th century. But I do not know in what year this word appeared compared to the writing of 'the Iliad and the Odyssey'.
What interested me in this article is also more the linguistic aspect than the scientific one. Though it is extremely disturbing to realise that the way we see the world is sometimes somewhat of an illusion, a product of a trick played on us by our own brain. :(
mike1880 wrote:JE, I'm blaming you
I accept the blame with joy as I haven't read you for months on this forum! :lol:

As for wasting too much time by clicking on links and more links and more links, I have resolved this problem by taking the habit of pasting websites’ addresses of articles I wish to read and videos I wish to watch in word documents in folders ‘to be read ‘ or ‘to be watched’… Now, I have no idea when I will be able to read or watch all the documents accumulated in these folders. Ideally during the summer… but the time to do that might never come up! :shock: But it is agreeable to have the feeling of not missing something by keeping it for later, even if 'later' does not materialise :lol: :lol:
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