# What's the fascination with asking this of colorblind people? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 5, 2008, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fascination-with-asking-this-of-colorblind-people/436364 "2008-02-05T09:56:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2008, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fascination-with-asking-this-of-colorblind-people/436364/61 "2008-02-06T22:27:56Z")
[QUOTE=Monty] **Priceguy** : I don’t even want to know why you have the flail! [/QUOTE] In case I need to flagellate myself. Duh. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2008, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fascination-with-asking-this-of-colorblind-people/436364/62 "2008-02-06T22:40:47Z")
[QUOTE=nofloyd] My mom and I argued once over a shirt one of us called more blue and the other called more green. Neither of us had color blindness problems. 2 possibilities: Even among the regular color-sighted population there is more phenotypic variation than we realize. Or, where we ‘break’ up colors is more culturally/environmentally driven than we realize. [/QUOTE] A friend and I were arguing once whether THIS COLOR was green or blue. I said it was blue, he kept insisting that it was green. It’s cyan: equal parts green and blue. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2008, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fascination-with-asking-this-of-colorblind-people/436364/63 "2008-02-06T22:49:06Z")
I think **nofloyd** ’s idea is correct, that it’s more cultural than anything. I see cyan as a subset of blue. I don’t care that it has a lot of green in it, I can’t bring myself to see it as a subset of green, and certainly not as a separate color in its own right (though I can distinguish it). But if it’s halfway in between, surely either opinion would be logical? When I look at [this](http://webvision.med.utah.edu/imageswv/KallColor3.jpg), I see six different colors: green, yellow, red, white, purple (‘magenta’), and two different types of blues. But I don’t want to hijack the thread so I’ll shut up now. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2008, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fascination-with-asking-this-of-colorblind-people/436364/64 "2008-02-06T23:37:33Z")
For some reason I want a shirt that has a fake color sensitivity test field that says nothing at all. Then I can tell people it says shit, and watch them hunt for the “message.” I must be evil. Tris ---
**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2008, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fascination-with-asking-this-of-colorblind-people/436364/65 "2008-02-06T23:39:34Z")
I’m not color blind, but I swear my wife must be hyper color aware. She’ll see shades of difference in colors that look exactly the same to me. I’ve often wondered whether most women have a larger color vocabulary than most men. I didn’t even know what fuscia or sienna were, or instance, until a woman pointed them out to me. To me, they’re all shades of other colors. Needless to say, I’m not a painter or printer. ---
**Author:** ![Yag\_Rannavach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/858c86/32.png) [@Yag\_Rannavach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yag_Rannavach)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fascination-with-asking-this-of-colorblind-people/436364/66 "2008-02-07T00:19:25Z")
[QUOTE=Triskadecamus] For some reason I want a shirt that has a fake color sensitivity test field that says nothing at all. Then I can tell people it says shit, and watch them hunt for the “message.” I must be evil. Tris [/QUOTE] Why not print that on the other side? “The box says shit”, or some such thing ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fascination-with-asking-this-of-colorblind-people/436364/67 "2008-02-07T03:21:32Z")
[QUOTE=PoorYorick] I’m not color blind, but I swear my wife must be hyper color aware. She’ll see shades of difference in colors that look exactly the same to me. I’ve often wondered whether most women have a larger color vocabulary than most men. [/quote] There is actually a subset of women who really DO see more colors than the rest of the population. The wiki on colorblindness mentions it. Let’s see if I can sum it up without screw-ups. Basically, although women carry two X chromosomes only one of those two is active in each cell. One of them shuts down. If a woman carries certain colorblindness genes this effect can result in her having not _three_ different types of light sensitive cones but _four_ - allowing her to see fine distinctions invisible to the normally color-sighted. Ironically, because she is a carrier of these genes, she is more likely to have colorblind children than a non-carrier. > [@](#): > > Needless to say, I’m not a painter or printer. And yet, despite being a deuteranonamolous trichromat, I have been both. Also, since my mother is a carrier of a defective color sensing gene, she might well be one of those “more colors than usual” people despite spawning a colorblind (more accurately, colorweak) daughter. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fascination-with-asking-this-of-colorblind-people/436364/68 "2008-02-07T03:46:29Z")
From what I got out of my 2 years of Japanese (fluent people feel free to correct me) is that there isn’t really a traditional word for green in Japanese. The word “midori” means green, but a shade that many Western people might call green is called blue (“aoi”) as well as green by the Japanese. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fascination-with-asking-this-of-colorblind-people/436364/69 "2008-02-07T03:50:43Z")
[Blue–green distinction in language - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinguishing_blue_from_green_in_language) mentions the linguistic side of this. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fascination-with-asking-this-of-colorblind-people/436364/70 "2008-02-07T03:58:15Z")
[QUOTE=PoorYorick] I’ve often wondered whether most women have a larger color vocabulary than most men. I didn’t even know what fuscia or sienna were, or instance, until a woman pointed them out to me. To me, they’re all shades of other colors. [/QUOTE] I thought this was generally accepted as a “fact” at least according to male comedians 😉 As far as I know my color vision is fine, but other people and I don’t agree when it comes to certain shades of pale blue and purple. I see them as blue, other people insist they’re purple. I imagine it must irritate colorblind kids to have people be wrong like that on a larger scale. The OP’s #2: I suppose I’d grit my teeth and give them an answer. People enjoy asking me stupid questions like that already. “Can I see how your write” is probably closer to the color blind question on an annoyance/rudeness scale than the one that makes me want to punch people: “Does the carpet match the drapes?” Fortunately, the latter is far less common. ---
**Author:** ![MadPansy64](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@MadPansy64](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadPansy64)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fascination-with-asking-this-of-colorblind-people/436364/71 "2008-02-07T03:59:16Z")
[QUOTE=Monty] .So, I have a question each for the following two groups of the TM: [ol][li]If you’re colorblind, how do you deal with people asking The Question?[/li][li]If you’re not colorblind, do you succumb to the compulsion to ask The Question?[/ol][/li][/QUOTE] #1: n/a #2: Arrange his side of the closet to not clash too horribly or insist that the washer really does eat larger-than-me-sized pastels. Never ask him for his opinion of the blue dress v. the green dress, or to grab my gray jacket, unless I wouldn’t mind wearing the tan one instead. I am extremely aware of variations in color. He claims that, as a couple, we average out to normal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fascination-with-asking-this-of-colorblind-people/436364.md?page=3)