Update about blogCa

Who knew all this would happen afterwards! Flat Creek in Feb. 2024. Much changed by the force of the hurricane floods in Sept. 2024.

Wednesday, October 6, 2021

The pink and blue conundrum (second time around)

I apologize that I posted this as a second post on the same day as another one...so I removed it and reposted it today. If you've already read it, you can skip today! 

 When you see a light red color, it is called what? Pink, of course!

And thanks for comment from John below which tells how pink came to have that name...

When you see a light blue color, what is it called? 

Light blue! How unimaginative!! The sky is various shades of just  - blue.

The artist in me is bewildered by that. And pink and blue for babies was originally supposed to be pink for boys, and blue for girls.

Baby Blue Eyes (the kind that doesn't change to another color as they grow older!


Cerulean Blue paint...showing a lighter hue

Cobalt Blue paint, showing the lighter hue.

I don't know why this came into my mind the other day, but I just thought I'd share it and see what you thought of it!

Comments from first publication (in error) but hey, I had no idea when I clicked publish that it would do it right then...I usually have dated the post before I type a word. Oops.

Awaiting moderation
6 hours ago
Good point! One does wonder..which is a good thing to do
7 hours ago


The names of colours is an interesting topic and has changed over time. The colour pink gets its name from the flower, not the other way around. The flowers gets its name from the jagged "pinked" edge to the petal - you know, like pinking shears. Similarly there used to be no colour "orange" until the fruit became common in Britain, before that the shade we get from 


mixing red and yellow was considered just a shade of red - hence things which are clearly orange have names like "red fox" and "robin redbreast". In the Irish language there was no equivalent of "brown" which accounts for dogs being described as "yellow" in translations of some old songs.

10 comments:

  1. Cool about pink as I am somewhat familiar with the flower.

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  2. To complete the truncated comment above...John also said:
    "... before that the shade we get from mixing red and yellow was considered just a shade of red - hence things which are clearly orange have names like "red fox" and "robin redbreast". In the Irish language there was no equivalent of "brown" which accounts for dogs being described as "yellow" in translations of some old songs.

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  3. And AC also said:
    AnvilcloudSeptember 27, 2021 at 7:20 AM
    There is also cyan on the colour wheel, but you're right, in every day parlance, it's all blu.

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  4. I find it interesting, since I've got the original comments, that by clicking on them, I can now see the deleted post again. Mmm, things never go away completely here in blogland!

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  5. Interesting information about colors. I had no idea. I love learning something new. Thank you for this!

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  6. ...color is a complex business.

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  7. Didn't know the word origin of pink--though I'm familiar with the flowers. Interesting how pink and blue became designated to girls and boys.

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  8. The color origins are interesting and also how we interpret colors. I had a blouse that my students insisted was purple although I considered it royal blue.

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  9. There are so many different shades of the same colour it amazes me.

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  10. Interesting post and comments.

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There is today, more than ever, the need for a compassionate regenerative world civilization.