we have touched on this before ..

in christianity, the same red ink (and style!) was used to head scripture for holy days, which evolved into holidays, and the red heading from the scripture, gave us a red letter day as a special day.

back when i was doing my red theme of the week, DXB gave us carmine:
Another word for red with similar origins is carmine:

NOUN: 1. A strong to vivid red. 2. A crimson pigment derived from cochineal.
ADJECTIVE: Strong to vivid red.
ETYMOLOGY: French carmin, from Medieval Latin carminium, probably blend of Arabic qirmiz, kermes; see kermes, and Latin minium, cinnabar.
(from
http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=miscellany&Number=105264

i suspect though, that the persians didn't use the Latin word minimum for the dye/pigment, but if you have a link between cinnibar( arabic for mercuric oxide) and minimun (latin for the same!) i would love to learn about it. crimson, scarlet, well as carmine share Kermes as an roots, (and kermes,goes back to verm, IE for insect/crawly thing.. that gives us many words! (worm & vermin come to mind!)


my other obsession