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Is my blue your blue? (2024)

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Re: Is my blue your blue? (2024)

#351

Post by adrian_b »

sudobash1 wrote: post #179

As other commenters here have noted, I found this interesting but a little frustrating. The second color it asks about is clearly cyan (or turquoise). For me, this is like showing an orange screen and asking if it is red or yellow. I understand that across cultures "orange" does not exist as a distinctly named color (it only got its name in most European languages around the 1500s), but as someone who was trained sin…

The current use of "cyan" for blue-green is a modern confusion caused by people who have used Greek words without bothering to check their true meaning.

In Ancient Greek, "cyan" was blue, not blue-green. More precisely, it was the color of the pigment "ultramarine blue", which has remained widely used until today. The name of this pigment was already used by the Hittites, long before the Greeks.

An example of a Latin author who distinguished consistently green, blue-green and blue in many places is Pliny the Elder.

Blue was referred to as the color of the sky or the color of the blue pigments used in painting, like ultramarine blue.

Green was referred to as "green like grass", "green like tree leaves" or "green like emeralds".

Blue-green was referred to as "green like the littoral sea", "green like turquoise" or "green like beryls".

This is especially obvious in the discussion about emeralds and beryls, which are identical but for their color, the former being green and the latter blue-green.

Similarly, in Latin "red" was used for both red and purple, but the two colors were distinguished as "red like crimson dye" (beetle-based dye) and "red like purple dye" (snail-based dye).

Re: Is my blue your blue? (2024)

#353

Post by adornKey »

red369 wrote: post #313
excalibur wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When we want violet, we know just what to do. Just mix our good friends purple and blue. I still refuse to believe that purple and violet are different colors.

I agreed with you, and then went to the Wikipedia pages for both. I might have changed my mind now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_(color)

I think using violet as a name for the entire color-range around (~128, 0, 255) is also common. So in a sense purple is an element of the violet color-range. But as points they are distinct. I think purple is more specific - as a color-range it'd cover less area.

Re: Is my blue your blue? (2024)

#355

Post by adrian_b »

adrian_b wrote: post #351
sudobash1 wrote: post #179

As other commenters here have noted, I found this interesting but a little frustrating. The second color it asks about is clearly cyan (or turquoise). For me, this is like showing an orange screen and asking if it is red or yellow. I understand that across cultures "orange" does not exist as a distinctly named color (it only got its name in most European languages around the 1500s), but as someone who was trained sin…

The current use of "cyan" for blue-green is a modern confusion caused by people who have used Greek words without bothering to check their true meaning. In Ancient Greek, "cyan" was blue, not blue-green. More precisely, it was the color of the pigment "ultramarine blue", which has remained widely used until today. The name of this pigment was already used by the Hittites, long before the Greeks. An example of a Latin…

Someone has downvoted this, despite the fact that what I have written is not an opinion, but just facts.

Because I have seen on HN extremely frequently downvotes that just show that the downvoters are ignorant about what they downvote. I stopped a long time ago to downvote comments.

Now I either upvote when I agree and otherwise I write a comment explaining why I disagree.

It would have been better if others had followed such a policy.

Perhaps the downvoter had something to say about "cyan", but this is indeed only one example of a long list of Ancient Greek words that have been borrowed into English during the 19th and 20th century, but which are used with incorrect meanings. Most likely this is due to the fact that those who have introduced these words did not study the Ancient Greek language and they also did not consult anyone knowledgeable or any good dictionaries. Another example of this kind is "macro" used as an opposite for "micro", i.e. as "big", while the true opposite of "micro" is "mega" = "big", while "macro" means "long", the opposite of "short" ("brachy" in Ancient Greek).

Re: Is my blue your blue? (2024)

#356

Post by moritzwarhier »

adrian_b wrote: post #351
sudobash1 wrote: post #179

As other commenters here have noted, I found this interesting but a little frustrating. The second color it asks about is clearly cyan (or turquoise). For me, this is like showing an orange screen and asking if it is red or yellow. I understand that across cultures "orange" does not exist as a distinctly named color (it only got its name in most European languages around the 1500s), but as someone who was trained sin…

The current use of "cyan" for blue-green is a modern confusion caused by people who have used Greek words without bothering to check their true meaning. In Ancient Greek, "cyan" was blue, not blue-green. More precisely, it was the color of the pigment "ultramarine blue", which has remained widely used until today. The name of this pigment was already used by the Hittites, long before the Greeks. An example of a Latin…

I found this an interesting "actually...", not sure why you're being downvoted.

Ofc the modern usage is not necessarily a "confusion" because of an older meaning, maybe that's bothering people, but I read it as tongue-in-cheek.

I prefer "turquoise" anyway, which is more common in German for blue-greenish colors.

Re: Is my blue your blue? (2024)

#357

Post by metalman »

people are getting more stupid debate without evidence and logic is rampant the title is the clasic example of word salad, pretending to be valid conjecture , but only exists to cause distraction through "subjectification" or foucault off, already

Re: Is my blue your blue? (2024)

#358

Post by [deleted] »

sudobash1 wrote: post #179

As other commenters here have noted, I found this interesting but a little frustrating. The second color it asks about is clearly cyan (or turquoise). For me, this is like showing an orange screen and asking if it is red or yellow. I understand that across cultures "orange" does not exist as a distinctly named color (it only got its name in most European languages around the 1500s), but as someone who was trained sin…

[deleted]

Re: Is my blue your blue? (2024)

#360

Post by ralferoo »

Suppafly wrote: post #266
sudobash1 wrote: post #179

As other commenters here have noted, I found this interesting but a little frustrating. The second color it asks about is clearly cyan (or turquoise). For me, this is like showing an orange screen and asking if it is red or yellow. I understand that across cultures "orange" does not exist as a distinctly named color (it only got its name in most European languages around the 1500s), but as someone who was trained sin…

>As other commenters here have noted, I found this interesting but a little frustrating. The second color it asks about is clearly cyan (or turquoise). For me, this is like showing an orange screen and asking if it is red or yellow. This, it commonly gets reposted on reddit and the colorblind sub, but it's basically worthless because most people acknowledge that there is a color between blue and green and forcing the…

The latter tests were all a bit pointless because they were just turquoise, and all looked much the same - a mix of blue and green, so I was pretty much answering based on whether it was bluer or greener than the previous image.

The results said "Your boundary is at hue 179, bluer than 82% of the population. For you, turquoise is green." and definitely if I was judging the boundary on a gradient, I'd have placed the line a bit further to the right.

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