On Hues of Blues

I checked out the Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning: How Green Is Blue. If this is some expression in common use today, I’ll admit that I’m rather uncommon and have never heard of it. At any rate, I was struck by the unusualness of it.

But wait…is unusualness actually a word? My word processing programme accepts it but the built-in Word Press spell-checker highlights it as an error. (It highlights programme as an error, too, but I’m using Canadian English today.)

I slid my mouse over to the Merriam-Webster site and they list unusualness as the noun, with the adjective being unusual, though its awkwardness does cause my mind to stumble a bit. STUMBLE is the Word of the Day prompt word this morning.

For the word unusual M-W offers alternatives like unique, off-beat, curious, odd, peculiar. If you want another word for your tongue to stumble over, try chromaticity, which is “the quality of color characterized by its dominant or complementary wavelength and purity taken together.”

In The Eyes Of The Beholder

The hues of blues are a common debate at our house: my beloved sees every blue-green shade from aqua to turquoise as green, while I call it blue. For example, is this fence blue and the sign green? Are they both green? Or both blue?

Likewise, are these ducks swimming in green water or blue?

The Colour of Emotions

It’s interesting how, in English, certain colours have become attached to emotions. A blue sky is always a sunny, cheerful one. Not so with a blue day or a blue mood, which rather suggests depression. It could be that people were green with envy long before Shakespeare came along, but his use of “green-eyed jealously” forever sealed the colour and the feeling in the Anglo mind.

Thus if you say, “How green is blue?” folks may hear, “How much sadness is caused by jealously?” Knowing someone has what you want, or that others have so much more than you do, can get you down if you focus there. Human as we are, envy does cause us to stumble at times as we go through life.

Asking, “How blue is green?” could be interpreted as, “She’s depressed and that’s why she’s looking at others and thinking they are so much better off.” Sad to say, when a person’s depressed they are usually inclined to see “everybody else” as upbeat, prosperous, and content with life. Other sad, lonely, desperate folks tend to fall below their radar.

And now I’ve exhausted my thoughts on this topic and shall wish you all a day in the pink.