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Blue Boy & Pink Girl
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Where does the following saying come from: Blue for a boy & Pink for a girl?
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I've no idea whether this theory hold water, but an archaeolgist I got talking to on a Roman site in Tunisia told me that it originates from the Roman practice of recording male names in blue and female ones in red on mosaic funerary monuments. I'm sure there are other equally plausible explanations.
However, it's only recently that we've associated blue with baby boys and pink for girls.
In fact, this reversal of what we consider �normal� was considered conventional, even in the early 20th century.
�At one point pink was considered more of a boy�s color, (as a watered-down red, which is a fierce color) and blue was more for girls. The associate of pink with bold, dramatic red clearly affected its use for boys. An American newspaper in 1914 advised mothers, �If you like the color note on the little one�s garments, use pink for the boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention.� [The Sunday Sentinal, March 29, 1914.]
�There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.� [Ladies Home Journal, June, 1918]
According to Jo B. Paoletti and Carol Kregloh, �The Children�s Department,� in Claudia Brush Kidwell and Valerie Steele, ed., Men and Women: Dressing the Part, (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989). - In the United States: �The current pink for girls and blue for boys wasn�t uniform until the 1950�s.
In fact, this reversal of what we consider �normal� was considered conventional, even in the early 20th century.
�At one point pink was considered more of a boy�s color, (as a watered-down red, which is a fierce color) and blue was more for girls. The associate of pink with bold, dramatic red clearly affected its use for boys. An American newspaper in 1914 advised mothers, �If you like the color note on the little one�s garments, use pink for the boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention.� [The Sunday Sentinal, March 29, 1914.]
�There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.� [Ladies Home Journal, June, 1918]
According to Jo B. Paoletti and Carol Kregloh, �The Children�s Department,� in Claudia Brush Kidwell and Valerie Steele, ed., Men and Women: Dressing the Part, (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989). - In the United States: �The current pink for girls and blue for boys wasn�t uniform until the 1950�s.
I'm also a pink hater. I still don't like it, but will concede to apricot or peach on occasion.
My youngest (a boy) used to love pink when he was little. He had a pink sweatshirt (bought from the boys' section of C&A, before you ask) and actually insisted on his bedroom being painted pink and grey when he was around five.
I'm not sure he'd be so keen now, though, being a strapping six-foot-four, football-playing warehouseman.
My youngest (a boy) used to love pink when he was little. He had a pink sweatshirt (bought from the boys' section of C&A, before you ask) and actually insisted on his bedroom being painted pink and grey when he was around five.
I'm not sure he'd be so keen now, though, being a strapping six-foot-four, football-playing warehouseman.
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