# Why does English have a word for pink, but not for light blue, light green, etc.? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 4, 2008, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290 "2008-02-04T23:13:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/21 "2008-02-05T03:03:18Z")
English not having “a word” for something isn’t exactly the case. Semantically, one considers the term (in this case _light blue_) to represent the idea. In essence, the term is the word, even though the term may contain more than one word. ---
**Author:** ![jasonh300](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/46a35a/32.png) [@jasonh300](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasonh300)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/22 "2008-02-05T03:05:32Z")
[QUOTE=Jragon] My teacher told us that when I was little. “The primary colors are yellow, magenta, and cyan… however crayola disagrees and since we’re using their products they shall hereby be referred to as yellow red and blue.” [/QUOTE] You actually had a teacher tell you the primary colors are yellow, magenta and cyan? How old (young) are you? In the late 70s, I was taught Red, Yellow and Blue, as was my son a few years ago. I told him to go back the next day and tell his teacher the primary colors were cyan, magenta and yellow. I think that in this day and age of computers-and especially color printers-that cyan, magenta and yellow are pretty commonplace, but 30 years ago, I doubt that anyone outside of the printing industry would even know that the terms cyan and magenta existed. Another thought…Crayola’s idea of Blue and Red aren’t even close to Cyan and Magenta. As a child, I always wondered why Yellow and Blue crayons didn’t mix to make a very good Green. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/23 "2008-02-05T03:08:56Z")
We have _terms_ for light blue and light green. (Two of them are _light blue_ and _light green._) If we had no terms for them, all we could do is point at the sky or the pistachio ice cream and go, “Uh, like _that_, y’know?” What we don’t have is universally accepted _words_ that communicate the idea of light blue, light green without the words _blue_ or _green_ in back of them. The only place you see _sky_ or _seafoam_ or such standing alone is in little boxes under the models in the spring J. Crew catalog. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/24 "2008-02-05T03:15:12Z")
[QUOTE=jasonh300] Another thought…Crayola’s idea of Blue and Red aren’t even close to Cyan and Magenta. [/QUOTE] Neither are the internet’s idea of **Blue** (hexadecimal #0000FF) and **Red** (hex #FF0000). ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/25 "2008-02-05T03:36:52Z")
[QUOTE=jasonh300] You actually had a teacher tell you the primary colors are yellow, magenta and cyan? How old (young) are you? In the late 70s, I was taught Red, Yellow and Blue, as was my son a few years ago. I told him to go back the next day and tell his teacher the primary colors were cyan, magenta and yellow. I think that in this day and age of computers-and especially color printers-that cyan, magenta and yellow are pretty commonplace, but 30 years ago, I doubt that anyone outside of the printing industry would even know that the terms cyan and magenta existed. Another thought…Crayola’s idea of Blue and Red aren’t even close to Cyan and Magenta. As a child, I always wondered why Yellow and Blue crayons didn’t mix to make a very good Green. [/QUOTE] I’m 18. Of course my teacher did a lot of stuff in optics and computing and such before she started teaching first grade. 😕 And my teacher knew crayola red and blue weren’t magenta and cyan or even close, she just accepted that it was “close enough” for our purposes. Of course I don’t specifically remember this speech, I visited said teacher recently (turned out she moved across the country to the same town as my by a stroke of coincidence) and she CLAIMS she told us that, she could very well be lying. And yes, I very well know I probably just vapourized all credibility I may ever have on this board by admitting my age. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/26 "2008-02-05T03:38:07Z")
> [@](#): > > In the late 70s, I was taught Red, Yellow and Blue, as was my son a few years ago. I told him to go back the next day and tell his teacher the primary colors were cyan, magenta and yellow. While it is true that cyan magenta and yellow provide a larger color space than red yellow and blue, RYB is a perfectly fine set of primary colors. There is nothing technically special about CMY color space that I know of. ---
**Author:** ![ignis\_glaciesque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@ignis\_glaciesque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ignis_glaciesque)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/27 "2008-02-05T03:48:22Z")
[QUOTE=Interrobang!?] Aubvagine? [/QUOTE] _pffffft_ I’m gonna have to figure out how to work that one into a conversation..! ---
**Author:** ![jasonh300](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/46a35a/32.png) [@jasonh300](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasonh300)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/28 "2008-02-05T04:33:46Z")
[QUOTE=Christopher] While it is true that cyan magenta and yellow provide a larger color space than red yellow and blue, RYB is a perfectly fine set of primary colors. There is nothing technically special about CMY color space that I know of. [/QUOTE] Well, you can’t produce a full range of color with RYB. Red is formed by combining magenta with a little bit of cyan, just as blue is formed by mixing a little magenta into cyan. Because of this limitation, it can’t be used in printing to make a full spectrum of color (or at least the closest approximation of full color modern technology can produce). Magenta and cyan are pure in that you can’t mix any other colors to produce them. RYB is fine for Kindergarten purposes, since the kids are working with a box of 8 crayons, and RYB are three out of the eight. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/29 "2008-02-05T04:53:10Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, you can’t produce a full range of color with RYB. This is precisely, what I meant when I said that RYB color space is not as large as that of CYM. To be honest, I am not as familiar with subtractive color space as I am with additive color space. If subtractive color space is anything like additive color space, then the true primaries are arbitrary since there are always colors that can’t be made by mixing the colors you choose as primaries. In other words, you can’t produce a full range of color with CMY either. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/30 "2008-02-05T05:39:42Z")
[QUOTE=Interrobang!?] There are single-word terms for some varieties of lighter colors – lime is a lighter shade of green, azure is a lighter blue. But none of those words are as universally understood (in English) as pink. [/QUOTE] Another word for light blue is **cerulean**. But it’s used almost exclusively to refer to the color of the sky. Lime is actually a yellow green – if you just a light green, try **celadon**. Pretty obscure word; it’s the name of a glaze for pottery but can also be used for the color of the glaze which is a light green. BTW, Korean doesn’t have a basic color word for pink. It has the other ten, though. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/31 "2008-02-05T05:48:19Z")
[QUOTE=dtilque] BTW, Korean doesn’t have a basic color word for pink. It has the other ten, though. [/QUOTE] If you don’t count [분홍색](http://endic.naver.com/search.nhn?query=pink&kind=keyword&x=9&y=14), then, no, Korean doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Lama\_Pacos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Lama\_Pacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lama_Pacos)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/32 "2008-02-05T07:23:38Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > English not having “a word” for something isn’t exactly the case. Semantically, one considers the term (in this case light blue) to represent the idea. In essence, the term is the word, even though the term may contain more than one word. I’m not sure I totally agree that “light blue” has as much semantic independence as “pink”. There is an objective difference in the fact that “pink” is a lexeme, while “light blue” is a predictable derivative of “blue”. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/33 "2008-02-05T08:26:42Z")
Does _light blue_ strike you as being different from _blue_? If so, then the entire term is semantically one unit. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/34 "2008-02-05T08:39:07Z")
If pink being a standard colour disturbs you, why is orange and brown OK (you list them among the standard colours)? Orange = Red + yellow, with a smidgen more red Brown = Erm… ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/35 "2008-02-05T08:57:11Z")
It’s been mentioned in the thread, but no clear dinstinction made, that pink is not light red. It’s actually a light red that has had some light blue added. So it’s somwhere between light red and light purple. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/36 "2008-02-05T09:19:34Z")
First of all, it seems that some of you don’t understand that RGB is additive and RYB is subractive, and the distinction isn’t arbitrary. You can’t compare Crayola colors with those seen on your monitor; they’re just two completely separate animals. And why hasn’t anyone mentioned _ **lavender** _? I’d say it’s just about as universally understood as pink. ---
**Author:** ![Lama\_Pacos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Lama\_Pacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lama_Pacos)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/37 "2008-02-05T10:35:41Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Does light blue strike you as being different from blue? If so, then the entire term is semantically one unit. I don’t disagree, but it strikes me that derived semantic units are less entrenched than independent ones. “Walking” is a much more vital concept in English than “strolling along the streets of Beirut while eating an apple with the left hand”, though both are, according to your definition, semantic units. Additionally, if you asked someone to name as many actions as they can think of, “walking” will likely come up much sooner than “strolling along the streets of Beirut while eating an apple with the left hand” (if the latter ever does come up). By a similar (but less drastic) token, a person asked to list off colors is much more likely to go for pink before light blue. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/38 "2008-02-05T10:51:04Z")
[QUOTE=panache45] First of all, it seems that some of you don’t understand that RGB is additive and RYB is subractive, and the distinction isn’t arbitrary. You can’t compare Crayola colors with those seen on your monitor; they’re just two completely separate animals. [/quote] You’re right that RGB is different, but RYB isn’t a proper colour space anyway - it’s a makeshift one that works OK for primary school art. > [@](#): > > And why hasn’t anyone mentioned _ **lavender** _? I’d say it’s just about as universally understood as pink. Funny that - because I’d primarily associate the term ‘lavender’ with the herb - it might take me a second or two to grok the context and understand you meant a colour. I’d say mauve or (possibly interestingly) lilac instead, or maybe just purple. -Which I think it a fairly apt demonstration that these things are significantly cultural. I see the term _orange_ hasn’t come up in this thread yet, and it should - before English speakers were exposed to the fruit called ‘orange’, we had no common word for exactly that colour - it would have been described as ‘scarlet’ or ‘flame red’, or something - and objects that colour would just be lumped in the categories of red, ochre or yellow, depending on the shade. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/39 "2008-02-05T10:52:10Z")
Interesting. I associate _lavender_ with the gem. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290/40 "2008-02-05T10:55:06Z")
[QUOTE=Monty] Interesting. I associate _lavender_ with the gem. [/QUOTE] I didn’t even know there was one. You don’t mean amethyst? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-english-have-a-word-for-pink-but-not-for-light-blue-light-green-etc/436290.md?page=3)