# Orange oranges **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [April 18, 2004, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-oranges/240714 "2004-04-18T21:32:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sacrechao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ea924/32.png) [@sacrechao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sacrechao)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-oranges/240714/1 "2004-04-18T21:32:03Z")
If “orange” wasn’t used as an adjective in the English language prior to ~1620, what colour were carrots in 1600? (Why do I suspect the answer is some variant of “red”?) ---
**Author:** ![biqu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@biqu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biqu)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-oranges/240714/2 "2004-04-18T22:51:22Z")
In reply to [this column](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_344a.html) by Cecil, > [@](#): > > **sacrechao** writes: > If “orange” wasn’t used as an adjective in the English language prior to ~1620, what colour were carrots in 1600? (Why do I suspect the answer is some variant of “red”?) Unless the 17th-century farmers started a long-term carrot breeding project to cultivate a species with a different color, I would bet the carrots of 1600 were approximately the same color as the carrots we have today. As for the name of the color, didn’t the bard say that “a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet”? ---
**Author:** ![biqu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@biqu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biqu)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-oranges/240714/3 "2004-04-18T22:55:19Z")
Oh, and have a look at this [previous thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=244189) on the subject. I forgot that guests are not able to search the forum archives. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-oranges/240714/4 "2004-04-18T22:55:41Z")
There’s a wide variety of carrots, from yellow to purple, although most are unheard of in supermarkets or garden centres. There’s no more a single “carrot colour” than there is an “apple colour”. ---
**Author:** ![Beauty\_Personified](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@Beauty\_Personified](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beauty_Personified)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2004, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-oranges/240714/5 "2004-04-19T04:29:52Z")
Exactly when did orange carrots make their first appearance? (And where, for that matter?) ---
**Author:** ![sacrechao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ea924/32.png) [@sacrechao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sacrechao)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2004, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-oranges/240714/6 "2004-04-19T11:13:12Z")
_offers the other end of the stick_ What I meant to ask was: what was the colour orange referred to prior to the introduction of the **word** orange. But, by all means, continue the historical discussion about carrots 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2004, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-oranges/240714/7 "2004-04-19T11:39:00Z")
What Norwegians call “oransje” is a much narrower range of color than what English-speakers call “orange”. Some things that look clearly orange to my American eyes are described as red by most Norwegians. On the other hand, the Norsk word for “carrot” would translate literally as “_yellow_ roots”, and oranges (the fruit) are often described as yellow, particularly when you’re talking about the flesh and not the rind. (The word for oranges is _appelsin_, totally unrelated to the color word.) People who can’t remember when oranges were a seasonal fruit frequently assume that their popularity at Easter is because yellow is the color of Easter in Norwegian tradition. So I assume the color we now call orange, pre-1600, was simply divided between the yellowish shades of red and the reddish shades of yellow. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2004, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-oranges/240714/8 "2004-04-19T14:30:26Z")
> [@amore ac studio](#): > > In reply to [this column](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_344a.html) by Cecil, > > Unless the 17th-century farmers started a long-term carrot breeding project to cultivate a species with a different color, 16th-century Dutch farmers did exactly that. > [@amore ac studio](#): > > I would bet the carrots of 1600 were approximately the same color as the carrots we have today. And you’d lose. Orange carrots didn’t become the norm in the English-speaking world until much later. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2004, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-oranges/240714/9 "2004-04-20T01:57:56Z")
> [@sacrechao](#): > > _offers the other end of the stick_ > > What I meant to ask was: what was the colour orange referred to prior to the introduction of the **word** orange. But, by all means, continue the historical discussion about carrots 🙂 Did you read the previous discussion [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=244189](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=244189) It should answer your question. There was NO NEED to have a name for orange prior to the word appearing.