# Why is pink a color? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 10, 2009, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012 "2009-03-10T22:31:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/41 "2009-03-12T06:11:46Z")
You must unlearn what you have learned about colors as we know them in everyday life. Color names are relative approximations applied for the sake of practicality. My wager is that Pink was a color commonly used enough in western culture to warrant it a very prominent name. [Etymology Online](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pink) says that the word “pink” was borrowed a flower “pale rose in color”, also perhaps from the notion of perforated petals or being small, as in a _pinky._ Anyway, what matters is it seems we get our color names from the things around us that remind us of that color. Now, look at this [color wheel…](http://www.businesscreatorpro.com/articles/images/color_wheel_theory.jpg) Just by looking at this, it’s clear just how relative colors appear. If I asked you to designate a pink tile from that color wheel, you might have some trouble deciding. But if I pointed to one of the light (tinted) reds or violets, and said that was pink, you probably wouldn’t disagree. This color wheel only represents Hue (the primary spectrum colors) and their tints (lightened) and shades (darkened). It is missing saturation, which saps the vividness of a color toward a neutral tone… toward grayscale. Anyway, my point being, I think _Pink_ seems like a more “legitimate” color than that of, say, Maroon, because it’s such a common color used in our society for many years… especially popular with little girls and bubblegum. But it’s really no more special than _Slate_ or _Beige._ ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/42 "2009-03-12T10:47:47Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > Just by looking at this, it’s clear just how relative colors appear. If I asked you to designate a pink tile from that color wheel, you might have some trouble deciding. But if I pointed to one of the light (tinted) reds or violets, and said that was pink, you probably wouldn’t disagree. I would actually locate pink somewhere within the purples – interestingly, while it’s not mentioned in the English wiki, the German version agrees with my assessment, defining it as a purple because it stimulates L- as well as S-cones; however, German does not greatly differentiate between rose and pink, the latter being described in the wiki as a ‘rose with a stronger blue portion’. ---
**Author:** ![glas\_onion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9dc877/32.png) [@glas\_onion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glas_onion)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/43 "2009-03-12T13:32:33Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > Regarding the observation of modern Welsh using English colour taxonomy - I believe the same may be true in Irish. I have a vague memory of noticing that old poems used the word “liath” - grey - for what we would consider blue. But nowadays the word “gorm” corresponds closely to English “blue”. Apart from “duine gorm” which means a black person, not a blue person! …the Irish word for “Pink” is Bán-Dearg. White-Red. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/44 "2009-03-12T13:57:51Z")
One thing that has annoyed me for years is that there is no twelveth color. We have white-black-grey, red-blue-yellow, orange-green-purple, and pink-brown-😕 ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/45 "2009-03-12T15:43:23Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > I would actually locate pink somewhere within the purples – interestingly, while it’s not mentioned in the English wiki, the German version agrees with my assessment, defining it as a purple because it stimulates L- as well as S-cones; however, German does not greatly differentiate between rose and pink, the latter being described in the wiki as a ‘rose with a stronger blue portion’. Exactly my point, the term ‘pink’ applies to a great portion of the tinted red to violet section. There is no objective demarkation. If you did a study, handing out color wheels (with a continuous spectrum, not the tiled one in my example) to a room full of people, and asked them to draw a boundary surrounding only the color pink, you’d get wildly different shapes, but likely all in the same general area. Some might draw too far toward what some might consider too _salmon_. Others might tread a little too far into _lavender_. While, yet there might be a whole conservative set that leave out what many would still consider to be ‘pink.’ ---
**Author:** ![cplif](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/48db29/32.png) [@cplif](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cplif)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/46 "2009-03-12T17:46:32Z")
I would think that color names issue from use, and thus concience or need. While Inuit language seems to contain several tens of qualities of snow (words) I can easily imagine that great differences between Irish color perception and Tuareg color perception have transpired through language. In the same way the word for “slate” in the desert is as useless as the word for sand song in Seattle ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/47 "2009-03-12T18:23:37Z")
> [@LawMonkey](#): > > Russian has a similar phenomenon: light blue is голубой\* and dark blue is синий. I understand that Ukrainian has two words for different shades of green. Russia does not? Bulgarian just has one word for every color, afaik. Синьо is all shades of blue, but you can use modifiers to make it dark or light. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/48 "2009-03-12T18:29:57Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Bulgarian just has one word for every color, afaik. 😕 Under what definition of “color”? ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/49 "2009-03-12T18:35:41Z")
WAG, pink is for girls, the name of the light shade of red is well known while the other light shades of blue, green, whatever, is not set by something as popular as association with 1/2 of the population. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/50 "2009-03-12T18:39:11Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > Exactly my point, the term ‘pink’ applies to a great portion of the tinted red to violet section. There is no objective demarkation. If you did a study, handing out color wheels (with a continuous spectrum, not the tiled one in my example) to a room full of people, and asked them to draw a boundary surrounding only the color pink, you’d get wildly different shapes, but likely all in the same general area. Some might draw too far toward what some might consider too _salmon_. Others might tread a little too far into _lavender_. While, yet there might be a whole conservative set that leave out what many would still consider to be ‘pink.’ I’ve always thought that purple was the color that kept its identy the best. Lilac, lavendar, magenta, plum, puce–all are considered shades of purple, not shades of the color you add to it (red, blue, brown, black) ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/51 "2009-03-12T19:46:55Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > WAG, pink is for girls, the name of the light shade of red is well known while the other light shades of blue, green, whatever, is not set by something as popular as association with 1/2 of the population. We’ve kicked around the “pink is for girls” thing a couple of times, too. There’s some evidence that the association is fairly modern (last century or two). In which case, at the time color names were evolving, pink would not have been exclusively “for girls”. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/52 "2009-03-12T19:55:42Z")
> [@](#): > > While Inuit language seems to contain several tens of qualities of snow (words)… This factoid gets bandied about so much, but people seem to overlook that English has tens of words for snow, too. Even discounting words that are etymologically related, you’ve got Snow Flakes White stuff Drifts Powder Hardpack Slush Flurry Blizzard Avalanche Graupel That’s eleven, just off the top of my head. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/53 "2009-03-12T22:14:21Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > One thing that has annoyed me for years is that there is no twelveth color. We have white-black-grey, red-blue-yellow, orange-green-purple, and pink-brown-😕 Tan/beige? Silver? Octarine?😛 ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/54 "2009-03-12T23:49:39Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > WAG, pink is for girls, the name of the light shade of red is well known while the other light shades of blue, green, whatever, is not set by something as popular as association with 1/2 of the population. Pink has only been “for girls” for less than a century, and only in the Western world. Before that (wikipedia lists the 1920s), pink (red for blood/passion/violence, white for innocence) was for boys, and blue (a “softer” colour) was for girls. For example, the Virgin Mary is often depicted wearing blue. IIRC Cecil did a column on this. Non-western nations never had that code. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/55 "2009-03-13T01:51:31Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > This factoid gets bandied about so much, but people seem to overlook that English has tens of words for snow, too. Even discounting words that are etymologically related, you’ve got > Snow > Flakes > White stuff > Drifts > Powder > Hardpack > Slush > Flurry > Blizzard > Avalanche > Graupel > That’s eleven, just off the top of my head. True, also [accourding to Cecil](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/263/what-are-the-nine-eskimo-words-for-snow), disregarding his choice of name for the Inuit, part of the reason Inuit have so many words for snow is because the langauge is heavily reliant on suffixes, prefixes, and the like. Whole phrases are rendered into single words. To compare it to english like that you’d have to count every possible phrase that uses the word snow. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/56 "2009-03-13T02:34:25Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > Why isn’t orange “dark yellow”? [The same reason it isn’t Pale Red](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=244189) And it is widely accepted that “pink” originally referred to the flower and later to the color of the flower, as remarked earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/57 "2009-03-13T02:36:54Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > True, also [accourding to Cecil](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/263/what-are-the-nine-eskimo-words-for-snow), disregarding his choice of name for the Inuit “Eskimo” is a perfectly good term when speaking about languages. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012/58 "2009-03-13T03:13:13Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > “Eskimo” is a perfectly good term when speaking about languages. Even if I give you that, he used the word for more then just langauge, but that’s not really related to color perceptions and names. So lets let it go. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-pink-a-color/489012.md?page=2)