Current Events > Why are redheads redheads and not orangeheads

(+) Yeah! (+)

America explain

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Because orange you glad they're not brunette?

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Testa rossa

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I agree it makes no sense. The English language is a very clunky beast.

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Also, I looked it up. It's because red is usually one of the first colors to get a word in a language. We were calling people redheads in the 1200s. Orange, the fruit, didn't show up until the 1300s. We didn't start using it to refer to the color until the 1500s. Until then, red and orange were considered shades of the same color, the same way light/dark blue is today.

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The word "orange" was a very late addition to the English language. Before then things that we now consider orange were considered shades of yellow-red.

https://www.thedailymeal.com/eat/which-came-first-orange-fruit-or-orange-color

Edit: I was snipped!

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why are black people black when they are just brown? why are white people white when they really are red because you can see blood through their skin?

The_Hat posted...

The word "orange" was a very late addition to the English language. Before then things that we now consider orange were considered shades of yellow-red.

https://www.thedailymeal.com/eat/which-came-first-orange-fruit-or-orange-color

It's fucking nuts to think that colors that the human eye could see didn't have a name at some point..

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Wii_Shaker posted...

It's fucking nuts to think that colors that the human eye could see didn't have a name at some point..

Before we had the English language humans were hunting mammoths.

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The_Hat posted...

Before we had the English language humans were hunting mammoths.

Nice try but there's alot of gray area in between the two.

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Wii_Shaker posted...

It's fucking nuts to think that colors that the human eye could see didn't have a name at some point..

It's still kinda true. Some languages don't differentiate between some colors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93green_distinction_in_language

In English, for instance, we usually consider pink and red to be different colors, but sky blue is still considered blue.

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The_Hat posted...

Before we had the English language humans were hunting mammoths.

Ugh-Zor hunt big hair beast when find strange rock. Ugh-Zor take rock. Rock can open? Has square leaves. Odd marks on leaves. Maybe understand? Oh yes, I do understand! Quite so impressed I was to learn that this unusual item that I had happenstanced upon was actually a very early but remarkably comprehensive draft of an English dictionary!
Now where is that mammoth I was chasing so ardently? I must say I desire to contently devour its fleshy tibia once properly roasted on an open fire and turn its wooly pelt into a primitive tent!

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Plenty of redheads aren't that close to 'orange' though. My dad was a redhead, but his hair was much darker than the typical 'ginger.'

Different cultures today even still have different colors that we omit when we use basic descriptions.

I remember some study we went over in college where there was some tribe that only referred to things as the equivalent of light and dark. They straight out didn't use colors that we do.

Also, (I think it was Russia but I could be confusing it with a neighboring country) has an entirely separate word for like a steely grey-blue that everyone else either lumps into grey or blue when they describe basic colors.

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