June 12, 2006

Colorful language We've seen English words ranked according to usage before, and over on that other site there was a recent discussion of the Internet's favorite color, and now we have Color Code [slow-loading java applet], a "full-color portrait of the English language."
  • Ugh...my poor synaesthete brains.
  • Of course color is spelled colour in the English language :-)
  • ... full-colour ... *furrows brow* What does empty colour look like?
  • So. English is basically pink?
  • Looks sorta like flesh tone to me, Plegmund.
  • Looks like eggshells from here. Not the white ones, the brownish to beige ones.
  • thanks sly_polyglot, this is cool and an interesting approach. i wonder if the results would be more striking if the colour-assignation were based on a single random result, rather than an averaged amalgam? it seems to me that taking the average will bias the results toward muted colours (e.g. look up "black" or "bright" in the portrait).
  • You can't get white eggs these days (not where I live, anyway). The majority used to be white, with brown slightly more expensive, but nowadays they put something in the chicken feed that makes them all brown. I can understand producing more brown ones, but doesn't anyone want white ones any more?
  • Pleg - I thought it was a fashion in England to have brown, with white as premium. I also think it's not the feed, it's the breed that determines colour, but I'm not sure. If it's the breed, perhaps that breed does better here. That said, brown eggs are still premium in Canada and the States, and the vast majority are white. I like the brown though - easier to see the shell against the white with boiled eggs.
  • Brown eggs also make very cool dyed eggs in the springtime. Very muted and nice. Do people other than me have colors in their mind for words (and letters and numbers)?
  • Vowels A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels, I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins: A, black velvety jacket of brilliant flies which buzz around cruel smells, Gulfs of shadow; E, whiteness of vapours and of tents, lances of proud glaciers, white kings, shivers of cow-parsley; I, purples, spat blood, smile of beautiful lips in anger or in the raptures of penitence; U, waves, divine shudderings of viridian seas, the peace of pastures dotted with animals, the peace of the furrows which alchemy prints on broad studious foreheads; O, sublime Trumpet full of strange piercing sounds, silences crossed by [Worlds and by Angels]: –O the Omega! the violet ray of [His] Eyes! --Arthur Rimbaud
  • Do people other than me have colors in their mind for words (and letters and numbers)? Yeah, Lara, I've been that way forever. Music can be uncomfortable, and certain colors piss me off. Your name is a black-and-red clockwise-swirling cloud in my head.
  • Oooh! I hope it's a good swirling cloud! Music has color and shape for me, too. So do words, strings of words, telephone numbers, bank account numbers... I'm glad to know that it's not just me. Your name is bumpy like terry cloth, and orange.
  • Days of the week, too. Wednesdays are kind of a burnt-orange. Thursdays are bluish-purplish.
  • Wednesdays are brown and white checked; I agree Thursdays are grey-blue; Fridays are yellow and white striped.
  • Wednesdays are cyan and white swirls of viscous fluid. Thurdays are black and orange and fuzzy like a bee (no stripes, however). Fridays are similar to fruit cake that won't sit still.
  • I don't care if Monday's blue Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too Thursday I don't care about you It's Friday I'm in love