Why do I see blue when everyone else sees green?

[whitetho]

@Rhythmdvl

My dog has a similar problem. He’s literate and knows the alphabet. But every time I show him an ‘F’, he sees ‘K’. More curiouser, whenever I ask him about it he just snickers and tries to pin it on the soup. Beats me.

This reference is now so obscure I wonder how many people know what is being referred to. This is one the off-color jokes that was ascribed – falsely according to Snopes – to TV comic Soupy Sales: "Soupy’s playing a game with White Fang in which the dog grunts the alphabet but consistently misidentifies the letter ‘F’ as the letter ‘K’ until Soupy blurts out in mock exasperation: “Everytime I see ‘F,’ you see ‘K’!”

[robert_columbia]

@whitetho

This reference is now so obscure I wonder how many people know what is being referred to. This is one the off-color jokes that was ascribed – falsely according to Snopes – to TV comic Soupy Sales: "Soupy’s playing a game with White Fang in which the dog grunts the alphabet but consistently misidentifies the letter ‘F’ as the letter ‘K’ until Soupy blurts out in mock exasperation: “Everytime I see ‘F,’ you see ‘K’!”

I got it.

[Candyman74]

@jamiemcgarry

Too much Viagra?

Why are you mocking the colourblind?

[Colophon]

@Hari_Seldon

But speaking of that it seems clear from such color phrases as “red hair” and “red rust”, both of which are clearly orange, that “orange” must be a relatively recent addition to the English color spectrum. That is, what we now call orange would have been called red some centuries ago, possibly yellowish red.

The name of the colour comes from the fruit, and oranges are a relatively recent introduction to the English-speaking world (15th century or thereabouts).

[UncleFred]

I think I have ‘dichromacy’ (from one of the links above). I have a hard time distinguishing between greens and blues.

Spencer Gifts (they still around?) were a staple of shopping malls and always had a sign out front that was illuminated blue lettering. I had the hardest time getting my eyes to focus on it.

I knew from testing back in grade school that I had this. It only became relevant after owning a home and it became time to pick out colors for paint; I stay out of that now.

[MeanOldLady]

@JKellyMap

One other possibility: is your girlfriend a native Spanish speaker, by any chance? The Spanish language places the blue/green boundary in a different location on the spectrum than the English language does. For example, the turquoise blue waters off the Riviera Maya are, in Spanish, a shade of “verde” (green).

How is that one other possibility? What the OP describes is very clearly not the case of a language issue.

[TriPolar]

@Ferret_Herder

My wild guess is that you may indeed have a subtle version of color blindness, in which you see some greens as blue, sometimes called blue-yellow color blindness. Check out the 4-panel color diagram just below that description; the lower-right quarter may fit your particular situation.

This is the test that first clued me in that I might have actual color blindness of some form (as opposed to just a different perception), but computer monitors aren’t really consistent enough in reproducing colors to rely on this. Actual testing has to be done with printed cards that are quality controlled. I understand there are also specially calibrated monitors that a specialist may have for diagnosis as well. If this had ever caused me a problem beyond Navy Blue looking like black in anything but the brightest light, and disagreements about what color something is, I would have sought out a professional diagnosis.

[BigT]

@TriPolar

This is the test that first clued me in that I might have actual color blindness of some form (as opposed to just a different perception), but computer monitors aren’t really consistent enough in reproducing colors to rely on this. Actual testing has to be done with printed cards that are quality controlled. I understand there are also specially calibrated monitors that a specialist may have for diagnosis as well. If this had ever caused me a problem beyond Navy Blue looking like black in anything but the brightest light, and disagreements about what color something is, I would have sought out a professional diagnosis.

Heck, yeah. I have passed the actual tests with flying colors before, but some of those on the Wikipedia page are somewhat hard to read.

[pulykamell]

@BigT

Heck, yeah. I have passed the actual tests with flying colors before, but some of those on the Wikipedia page are somewhat hard to read.

Yeah, I was wondering about that. The one for deuteranopia and trinatopia are particularly non-obvious on my color-calibrated monitor. I got them both correct, but I wouldn’t have bet the house on it. The more I look at the deuteranopia one, the more I think I should have gotten it wrong, as now I see a different number.

Are those tests pretty obvious for most people? The online Ishihara tests are a complete breeze for me, but these are hard.

[Mosier]

I would really like to see a pic of the bathroom rugs. Lets settle this once and for all.

[Cat_Whisperer]

@Hari_Seldon

I was amazed by the Wiki article referred to. I pass the Ishihara test easily, but my wife and I argue continually about colors. <snip>

My husband and I have disagreed on blues and purples in the past, too. I wrote it off to differing colour perceptions (which it sounds like it was).

@UncleFred

<snip>
Spencer Gifts (they still around?) were a staple of shopping malls and always had a sign out front that was illuminated blue lettering. I had the hardest time getting my eyes to focus on it.<snip>

Blue lights are actually hard for everyone to focus on (because of their frequency, I believe).

@Mosier

I would really like to see a pic of the bathroom rugs. Lets settle this once and for all.

I think we need a poll.

[AaronX]

Would it have anything to do with how we’re trichromats? e.g. one might be exactly 578 nm, and the other reflects the primary colors to stimulate our cones exactly the way 578 nm light does. I always thought light like that would be different, but look the same.

[cmyk]

@Mosier

I would really like to see a pic of the bathroom rugs. Lets settle this once and for all.

I found a picture of it online in this article…

I think I see the problem.

[Johanna]

All different languages have all different ideas of where to draw the boundary between green and blue.

[cmyk]

Actually, it’s not that hard looking at this chart:

…Red…orange…yellow…green…cyan…blue…magenta…purple…
████████████████████████████████████████████████

[robert_columbia]

@JKellyMap

One other possibility: is your girlfriend a native Spanish speaker, by any chance? The Spanish language places the blue/green boundary in a different location on the spectrum than the English language does. For example, the turquoise blue waters off the Riviera Maya are, in Spanish, a shade of “verde” (green).

This is also true of other languages. For example, the Japanese word “aoi”, traditionally translated as “blue”, also includes at least some shades of what English speakers call green.

[KlondikeGeoff]

@chaoticbear

Hmm. How accurate are the Ishihara tests?

Many years ago when the Army gave colorblindness tests, they just showed several different skeins of yarn and asked recruits to name them.

When I first went in service in 1945, the Ishihara tests had started. To my chagrin, I could identify very few of the numbers, and was told I had severe colorblindness.

This bugged me for years, and it was obvious I did not. I went into a paint store and asked tp see the color charts, explaining my problem. The salesman was very cooperative, and I identified not only each color, but different shades of them. He told me I had unusual color perception.

This went on for years, always having to argue with doctors that I did NOT have colorblindness, but they all swore by good old Ishihara.

I started my career as a photographer and was always complimented on my color photos. What is more, I was early in making color prints, where it was necessary to differentiate between cyan, magenta and yellow. Many could not tell exactly what cyan and magenta were, but i was able to use a variety of filters to adjust color.

From my early youth, I fell in love with artworks, and especially loved the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.

Later, when married, my wife was (and still is) a painter, doing not only landscapes but also abstracts. She often comes to me to critique a work-in-progress, and she is surprised at how I can identify subtle shades of color. Also when we are outdoor and admiring the scenery, I can see subtle blues in the green foliage, and other colors in the grass, water, etc. She told me very few people can do taat.

This has really pissed me off all my life, and most times when I get an eye exam, I ask about this, but they all hold tightly to the value of Ishihara charts.

Finally, not so many years ago when I was seeing a retina ophthalmologist about a problem, and mentioned this, he told me that a very, very few people with normal color perception are unable to see the numbers. Something to do with contrast, but he could not explain it. I have tried to research this with no success.

Damned Ishhara!