A.Word.A.Day -- AWADmail Issue 1202

My favorite name for a color: Fuchsia! A flamboyant, joyful color. And it can be a naughty word, if pronounced incorrectly. Definitely not a color that Ron DeSantis would approve of.
-Laurie Tompkins, Laupahoehoe, Hawaii (laurietom29 outlook.com)

Fuget ron desantis. This is my yarn stash.
-Julie Kornblum, Woodland Hills, California (julie juliekornblum.com)

These aren’t necessarily my favourite colours, But I do enjoy saying: Puce, spruce, and chartreuse!
-Sheila Heinrich, Calgary, Canada (sheila-h shaw.ca)

A while back I filled out a form for my driver’s license renewal, listing my eye color as reseda. It took two months before I got my license. Eye color was listed as blue.
-Bob Hamlin, Wilder, Vermont (comingdetractions gmail.com)

Email of the Week -- Brought to you buy Johnny Mustard, Yuk, Retired. The Corps Has!

I teach art history and enjoy how manufacturers over the years have introduced their latest and greatest new iterations of black pigments. Here is one I thought you might enjoy, Vantablack. Or, a different version of the blackest of black, Singularity Black.
-Sheri Newcomer, Corona Del Mar, California (sheri.newcomer gmail.com)

In Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House Myrna Loy describes colors for the new house: video (2 min.)
-Carol Kort, Brookline, Massachusetts (carkor gmail.com)

I discovered the word teal a few years ago and it was love at first sight -- and sound -- with the colour itself, its etymology, and the relationship between the word on paper and its sound. It never fails to delight me. I’m grateful just for its existence (I know, language is more than ever at risk but really, I am confident such a subtle and delicate word is under the radar. If action is called for, though, I am ready to wear teal and repaint my house, too.)
-Nelly Hivet, Bourges, France (hivet.nelly neuf.fr)

Thank you for giving us the language and the thoughts to help us survive this time.
I can’t imagine living in the world where they have taken away color. As an 88-year-old on a walker I spend a great deal of time sitting in my garden, eyes dancing from the yellows of calendula against the blues of iris and bluebell against the sunstruck white of daisies, oranges of gerber daisies, reds and pinks of geraniums.
All of this against the deep green shadows of the Pacific Northwest firs, far far away from DeSantis and his fascist ideas.
-Seungjae Park, Portland, Oregon (via website comments)

The colour of the earth before sunrise is wise and hints of patience with a frieze of expectation and contemplation.It promises a peace that only softness can supply, wrapped in a tranquility of endless ancient blue Calm painted across the lawn. Diligence amongst the branches of the magnolia. A hint of shadow behind a gate post and gay expectation from a florescent diorama. But expectation rules in the sky...
-Martin Frampton, Newton Abbot, UK (sandynap36 gmail.com)

In my ministry I was always singing with kids. A favorite song was by Joe Wise with the title “I love to color.” Part of the chorus is: “...sometimes I like to color like I know it ought to be, but one time or another I just use another color, and when I’m feeling real loose, I color puce.”
-George H. Martin, Bloomington, Minnesota (geoinmn icloud.com)

My favorite colors are black and red. Within the Society for Creative Anachronism the colors of my arms are more fanciful, sable and sanguine.
-Glenn Glazer, Felton, California (glenn.glazer gmail.com)

Colours, is it? William T. Stearn’s Botanical Latin is a slab of a book, covering the vocabulary, grammar and usage of that peculiar language. Including colour descriptors before RGB hexadecimals and Pantone was ever a thing:
Whites: Candida albicans is the off-white pure-white fungus, for example. Neither is as snow-white as nivalis. Milk white lacteus otoh has a touch of blue; while chalk-white cretaceus has a hint of grey and is definitely matt. Argenteus is a silvery white with a lustre. cremeus or eborinus are creamy because there is an undertone of yellow. Reds: Puniceus carmine; ruber/erythro blood red; roseus rosy; corallinus coral; incarnatus flesh-coloured; coccineus cinnabarinus scarlet; igneus flaming; miniatus vermillion; lateritius brick; rubiginosus reddy-brown; cupreus coppery gilvus terra-cotta.
-Andrew Lloyd, Knockroe, Ireland (knockroe gmail.com)

Chartreuse is one of my favorite colors because it’s the one my mother chose to paint our room when I was little. It’s a color that gives energy, and she was a person of enormous energy whom everyone loved, and not just her kids. I don’t see a color between green and yellow that does not bring her to mind.
-Leslie P. Lowe, New Orleans, Louisiana (leslie leslie.ms)

Puce: Not a favorite color, but perhaps the first non-Crayola color I learned -- used by my swim coach to describe the color of the previously unexposed skin that the team Speedo suits allowed the sun to sizzle in the era before we knew to wear sunscreen.
-P. Tucker Withington, Plymouth, Massachusetts (ptw pobox.com)

Color preferences ... or should I say colour as my favorite for an automobile is British Racing Green. Although I have owned a lot of British cars, none was BRG as all were purchased used. My only BRG car was (ironically) a Fiat Spider.
-Granville Pool, Redwood Valley, California

Your week of words about color reminded me of recently learning about “structural color” (possibly motivated by your website). I was amazed to learn how little I knew about the science of color and to finally understand the microscopic secrets that give us the thrill of viewing iridescence. Three cheers to waves of light, absorption and diffraction. The world may be in a huge philosophical and political mess but we sure are colorful!
-Betsey Hill, Alanson, Michigan (winklebrow hotmail.com)

Amaranth is a luscious and luxurious vibrant reddish-pink color, similar to magenta. It is named for the flower of amaranth plant, an earthy, nutty, edible grain alternative to wheat, quinoa, or bulgur. Native Hopi people used these flowers to make a deep red dye. You can see amaranth-colored vestments in the movie “Conclave”, starring Ralph Fiennes. As a cardinal, he is dressed in scarlet, but his assistant, Bishop O’Malley, wears beautiful-colored amaranth garments, like a zucchetto (skullcap) and fascia (sash). It’s worth watching just to see the rich colors of the official vestments. The story line isn’t bad, either!
-Douglas Bietsch, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania (adbietsch comcast.net)

In the world of botany, we use hundreds of Latin and Greek (and other etymologies) words to describe color. Just a few off the top of my head:
Penstemon cyaneus -- blue
Aquilegia chrysantha -- yellow
Heuchera sanguinea -- blood red
Echinocereus viridiflorus -- green
Salvia argentea -- silver (leaves)
Abies concolor -- one color
Digitalis purpurea -- purple
Pinus nigra -- black (bark)
Digitalis ferruginea -- rusty
Penstemon albus -- white
Allium azurea -- blue
-Pat Hayward, Masonville, Colorado (hayward lpbroadband.net)

It only seems right that, just like nature, Governor DeSantis should prismatically light up the day with Roy G Biv.
-Gary Beach, Richardson, Texas (glbeach gmail.com)