How about simple “x y” names (i.e., which is more red; ‘red orange’ or ‘orange red’)?
I assume both would follow typical English adjective-noun order and mostly be the latter color, but I’m never sure.
For me, x-ish y implies that you start with the y and it leans a little x, so reddish orange is more orange, with tones of red, whereas red-orange is red (mentioned first) that has some orange to it.
Xish Y is more Y to me (like others said, it’s Y base modified by X); however, X-Y makes me think of a color right in the middle. Wish that was a poll choice.
For me, in both “reddish orange” and “red-orange” orange is the main color bring modified by red(dish.) Compound and hyphenated words usually have their root at the end, so that’s how my brain parses it. Now is there a difference in degree? Perhaps, but not one I’d say I follow consistently. Reddish orange sounds like it should have a little less red in it than red orange, but I’m sure I’ve used the terms interchangeably.
I also may be influenced by Crayola.
See Yellow orange and orange yellow.
Ah, shucks. I should’ve thought of that. :smack:
I’d probably agree on both counts (differing degrees, but generally used the same)
Huh, interesting observation, well that probably goes for most of us.
I voted for the bottom choice, but it’s still not quite right. Reddish orange is orange with a slight tinge of red. Yes, it’s orange that is slightly reddish, just like standard grammar rules would tell you.
Red-orange is close to halfway between red and orange. It’s slightly more orange than orange-red would be.
I would have voted this way too.
This…forced to choose one (as I was, here), ‘red-orange’ would be more orange, since, as pulykamell said, as it’s written ‘red’ should be the modifier of ‘orange’.
Red-orange is 50% red and 50% orange.
Reddish-orange is 40% red and 60% orange.
What Rachellelogram said, though for me I’d say it’s more like 30% red and 70% orange for reddish orange.
You think this is confusing, just ask people what they think purple looks like. A noticeable minority will pick out a color I define as pink.
Or tell you that something that is clearly purple is blue. I have gotten into some pretty heated fights with people about that. Some people either don’t have good mental boundaries when it comes to the purple range or they are some version of color-blind.
In English syntax, noun phrases use a “left-branching” or “head-final” arrangement. That means the modifiers come first and the essential word comes last. If you say “red apple” or “green broccoli” you’re essentially talking about the headwords apple and broccoli, not the colors red and green in themselves. If you say “red-orange” or “green-blue,” then the focus is primarily on the headwords, the colors orange and blue, with red and *green *serving as modifiers.
I noticed when I was very young and coloring with my set of Crayolas that the compound color names like red-orange described a color that’s predominantly the second one in the compound. This made intuitive, empirical sense to me, because if I were to combine them on my own, first coloring an area with red and then going over it with orange, I’d get red-orange, i.e. a tinge of red added to mainly orange—in other words, laying down colors in the order they were named meant that the last-named one, the one on top, was predominant.
I agree with this. It’s clearly and succinctly stated.
The funny thing about purple is that in popular parlance it has colonized the violet range, so that it covers about twice as much range as other colors. Ever notice how “violet” is the scientific name for the color at the high-frequency end of the visible light spectrum, but nobody ever refers to an object as violet-colored? In the vox populi it’s always purple.
Narrowly defined, purple is the color midway between magenta and violet. So, over the whole range that’s popularly called “purple,” violet is the bluer half while (narrowly-defined) purple is the redder half. Purple is next to magenta, while violet is next to indigo (the color that’s midway between violet and blue).
Red orange is orange with a little red, while orange red is the opposite.
Perfectly said!
I would disagree with this, because that would make “red-orange” and “orange-red” equivalent to each other, and I don’t think they are. I would say the first is a bit more orange, and the second a bit more red.
I am fairly neutral between the last two options. Maybe red-orange is redder than reddish orange, but I do not think I would ever say the former. I might say orangey red (to mean something basically red, but with just a hint of orange).
Reddish orange is mostly orange with just a hint of red.
Red-Orange is nearly equal parts of red and orange, with maybe just slightly more red, so as to be barely distinct from Orange-Red.