oranges

[reloaded]

where oranges named cos of thier colour (which seems a bit of a cop out really by thier discoverer " UHMMMM , what shall i call this sweet tasting , fleshy , tropical orange coloured fruit ive just found , o i know ill call it an orange " ) , or was the colour named after the fruit ? same applies for limes and pistachios .

[Quizmonster]

In each of the three cases you list, the name of the thing predated the name of the colour...usually by centuries!

[New Forester]

I think I'm right in saying that English speakers did not really recognise the colour at all before the orange arrived -- there was yellow, and red, and reddish-yellow and yellowish red and that's-yer-lot.

 

Incidentally, there are no wild flowers in Britain which are consistently orange.

 

Pink is another one -- some languages simply don't have it.  On the other hand I believe in some languages (Russian?) there is a separate word for pale blue, equivalent to pink being pale red.

 

Even what seem to be obvious colours such as red are not as fixed as you might think.  Judging by the names of plants and animals, "red" was much more widely used in the past.  For example, red foxes, deer, squirrels, setters and cattle would be called brown or perhaps even orange if they were not animals.  Red clover and red dead-nettle are purple, red campion and red helleborine are pink.  In fact I can think of no British flower with "red" in the usual English name which is actually what we would now call red (those flowers which are definitely red are named otherwise).

 

By the way, I'm not sure lime is named for the fruit -- lime is the usual modern British name for the tree which I think is called basswood in America -- it has a lovely clear green leaf colour.  I suspect colour-names like lime, taupe, avocado and pistachio were invented quite recently when names were needed for subtle shades of paint or clothes.  How old are they, QM?

 

[Quizmonster]

Dear NF, the relevant times are as follows, with the name first and the colour second:-

a. Orange.....(i) 1300s...(ii) 1600s

b. Lime........(i) 1600s...(ii) 1800s (as lime-green)

c. Pistachio..(i) 1500s...(ii) 1700s.

 

[New Forester]

Very much earlier than I'd guessed, except perhaps lime.

 

[Peter Pedant]

Hi boys,

let me chip in my two penny worth.....

doesnt orange come from naranje? Spanish from teh Arabic and then the n drops off, (as in newt and eft)

Add in to NF's list red cow, which is really brown. The issue being that really bright red colours werent available until the calico red process. I am interested about the comment of reds being purple, as Thomas Hardy in Far from the Madding crowd has Bathsheba Everdene Early purple orchids while she waits for Troy, and calling them Red Coats. But if you've seen them, they clearly cannot ever have been red coats. This point has upset me for twenty years.

Trevor Roper -through blunted sight -around 1966 has a certain amount on names of colours. Homers wine dark sea takes a bit of explaining.

[New Forester]

I don't think the dye explanation washes, so to speak.

 

Red as we now know it would have been a very familiar sight to our ancestors, even if they had no cloth that colour.  Off the top of my head:

 

An adder's iris

Poppies

Numerous berries: hips, redcurrants, raspberries, whitebeam, yew etc.

Wayfaring tree leaves.

Blood!

Scarlet pimpernel

Wattles of farmyard fowl, pheasants, grouse etc.

Moorhen beak, goldfinch face, woodpecker crowns etc

 

I think they must have called those colours scarlet or crimson, and kept "red" for what we'd now call brownish-red or chestnut as well as purplish.  Nice to know Hardy agreed....

Cattle were on my list already -- my own may be white, but I'd not forget cattle!  I do have two with red ears and feet.  But add rust, grouse, kite and robin redbreast.

 

[New Forester]

And redstart, red-tailed hawk, red-footed falcon...

 

But here's an anomaly:  why are chestnut cattle and dogs red, but chestnut horses are, um, chestnut -- sorrel in the US, chesnut-without-a-T for Suffolk Punches, but never red.