Colors vs. Shades

Do any of you ever get riled up about pink? (If you do not and are completely uninterested by the topic of pink, then quickly scroll down to the pictures and other topics below the pictures.)

I do sometimes.

Unreasonable I know.

But seriously. When did it become a predominately female color, and when did it even gain color status at all?

Here is how I understand colors.

There are three primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. Then there's white (no color) and black (all the colors). You get secondary colors by mixing the primary colors together.

Red + Yellow = Orange
Red + Blue = Purple
Blue + Yellow = Green

Those are the colors. (Please note that I am not an art major or anything, so I am not promising that the above information is correct. I'm merely sharing my color beliefs. (tee hee) Please feel free to let me know if I am wrong, because I am curious about this.)

The rainbow has some colors in it. I was taught they were Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. You'll notice that matches the primary and secondary color sequence, with each secondary color fitting nicely in between the primary color it came from.

The other day I saw a drawing of a rainbow that instead of having indigo, had pink. Pink. On the rainbow! That got me started thinking about pink.

Once you have your colors,  you can make shades of those colors by making them lighter or darker (through adding white and black) or by adding other primary or secondary colors as well.

As far as I can understand, pink is just red with white in it. Just like light blue is just blue with white in it. Or light green is just green with light in it. However, pink has somehow gained color status. Yes, all shades have names thanks to Crayola, but pink is actually considered a color more so than any other shade. (Again, my opinion.)

If I dressed Jill in a light green outfit, and I said, "Do you like Jill's green outfit?" I do not believe that anyone would correct me and say, "Oh, I thought it was light green." (At least I don't think anyone would!) But if I dressed Jill in a light red outfit, and I said, "Do you like Jill's red outfit?" I do believe that someone might say (or at least think), "Oh, I thought it was pink." I would actually be considered wrong by calling pink red, because pink is no longer a shade of red. It has become a color.

And I would like to know when that happened.

Haha. I'm sure this is a really boring post for pretty much everyone, but I've been thinking about it a lot recently, and I wanted to know if anyone else shared my slight annoyance with pink. So . . . do any of you? Or am I just completely weird? (Maybe don't answer the last question. tee hee) ;)

Okay, I'll add some pictures to reward anyone who read this far.


Other news: Jill's two bottom canines have made an appearance, so she's up to almost 14 teeth! The ultrasound for new baby is scheduled two weeks from today! So soon. :) I still haven't decided what Jill should dress up as for Halloween. There are just too many options. Any suggestions? (Haha. I say there are too many options, and then I ask for more!) I am feeling a lot better now than I did before. I haven't thrown up in two weeks, and I can almost always eat at mealtime. For the most part, I feel wonderful and super excited about baby number two!!

Oh yes, I suppose I should mention the cat trials. Sigh. Cosmo came home from the vet two weeks ago. Yes, we took away his manhood. He was kept at the vet for three days after the surgery. He came home with no complications and was doing great. He was as cuddly and as frisky as ever (never both at the same time though!). Previous to going to the vet, he had only had one accident. Only one. After coming home though, he would go in his litter box about once a day and do all the rest in various places around my house. AHHHHHHHHH. What to do? What had happened to my perfect cat?

One morning around 5:00, I actually woke up to the smell of cat poop in my bedroom. I have never before wished that I had farted, but man. When I woke up, I was REALLY hoping that smell was somehow a fart and not cat poop in my bedroom. Farts require no clean up. Alas, it was cat poop.

So, after a few days of despair and being really nauseated by cleaning up so much cat poop (because trust me, pregnant noses are sensitive!!), I got him limited to only pooping in one corner. Ha. Then I caved and just bought another litter box for that corner. And he has had no accidents since. He has also never used his other litter box since. So, I have an unused litter box in my utility room, separated from the house with a beautiful cat door, and then I have an eyesore of a covered litter box in my family room behind my television.

I wonder what would have possessed him to reject his old litter box and choose a new location to do his business? I have no idea. I do know though that I have not had to clean any more poop out of my carpet, and that is all that matters.

(Luckily, he almost always pooped on things rather than directly on the carpet, like papers, a cardboard box, a bulletin board that was on the ground waiting to be hung, etc. This was only a problem when he chose to poop on a tangle of electrical cords. That was a mess cleaning up.)

But once again, I have a perfect cat. I need to get some video footage to show how much Jill just loves him.

Comments

  1. Your comments about pink really entertained me (I even read it to Scotty!!!) I'm not a color expert, but I do know there are also tertiary colors (yellow-orange, red-violet, blue-green, etc.) I don't have any qualms about calling "light red" pink. But, your argument does make sense! :D

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  2. Yes, as Mallory mentioned, there are the tertiary colors, but pink isn't one of those. What I think is funniest about pink is that it used to be a man's color. When did it become the symbol for femininity? When did we take over purple too, for that matter, because purple used to be the color of kings.

    That's what I'd like to know about pink. Sometimes I hear people talking about mauve, and I'm don't know, what does that even look like?

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  3. Oh yeah. Tertiary colors. That is vaguely familiar from elementary art class. Vaguely. Definitely wouldn't have remembered it on my own.

    And Ames, I know! But when you look back, it is way more common for male "things" to become female "things" than for the appropriation to go the other way.

    Like names that used to be boy names and now are both or only for girls. Like corsets. And high heeled boots. Both of those started out as fashion options for men. (Granted the last two were a long time ago, but still.)

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  4. Who's favorite color is pink after 5th grade anyway?

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  5. Down with pink!!! I've never been a fan. I think if all the ethnic violence in the world was focused on pink instead this worled would be a better place. When did it rise up from the state of shade to a state of color. Down with pink!!!

    BTW - I'd make a mess on your carpet too if you and Jeff paid to take away my manhood so I can understand Cosmo's issues.

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  6. I've never thought about it before, but you are definitely right about the pink issue. Fun fact: what you said about the colors & white and black are true for additive colors such as paints, but for actual colors of light (ie the rainbow) it's the other way around. White is all the colors & black is the absence of colors/light.

    As far as the litter box issue, cat's are territorial, he may not recognize it as his litter box anymore by the scent but remembered it as being his so he used it once a day. Try gradually moving the new one into the old spot & save the old one in case you get another cat.

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  7. I'm going to go against everyone and say I think that pink isn't just light red. I think some pink has a little bit of blue in it, because if you just lighten red, you don't get the princess pink that Disney loves so much. But we still associate those colors as pink, even though they have blueish tones.

    So pink is not just light red. Light red, to me, is a rose color. Like the flowers in the background of your blog.

    What I think is ridiculous is that last year, on Martha, she had some people on who insisted there was a new color, "blurple" which was blue and purple together. (Hello, did they really mean indigo?) I was surprised that Martha didn't make a snarky comment about it.

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  8. Also, in German they don't have a color word for orange. It's considered yellow. Which English speakers see as two separate colors. So, I think color perception is determined by common words for color.

    We use pink a lot. So it gets a spot in the rainbow (even if it is in the WRONG spot, and real rainbows don't have pink in them).

    And almost no one uses indigo anymore. So it gets booted.

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  9. Yea! The first belly shot! You look beautiful! I am so glad you are feeling better. After my short bout with barfing this week I have a whole new appreciation for what you go through during the first trimester! I can't wait to find out what you are having! :)

    Sometimes I wonder why we keep pets around. When they make messes and cost tons of money I think, "...and we chose to get into this. You were totally optional." I guess at least they are cute... most of the time.

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  10. I love Brooke's comment, "You were totally optional."

    Ha ha. That's funny.

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  11. You forgot to mention HOT pink- HOT pink is definately my favorite color... another shade of pink... LOL but seriously- I do like Jill's light red shirt in the pics :)
    I like your prego pic! You can actually see it a little! You have taken forever to show- way to hide it :)

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  12. I love this blog post. It is interesting that pink is it's own color and not just a shade of red. For those who do not work in graphics or design or fashion, colors usually are not more than a typical 24 box of crayons. For many that I know and work with though, it is not uncommon to hear someone correct color terms. A green wall would never be determined green but sage, moss, seaweed, emerald, pine, kale, mint, hazel, etc.!
    Also, I think Jill should be Hello Kitty like me :) But don't tell anyone else because it's a secret.

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