I dunno-- I am tone deaf-- i mean really bad-- but colors for me each color is pure and sings to me. I can track colors mentally-- many "colors" change depending on the light source-- incandesant/ floresent/natural daylight. but its not a problem for me.
It is one of the few characteristics that my mother really valued in me as a child. She was a seamstress and workded at home. she frequently sent me for buttons, thread and bindings and rarely questioned my matches. even when i brought home what looked to be a brown thread for a purplish fabric-- i was always right-- and as she stitched up the clothes, she had to admit it! I was grown before i realize not everyone could see colors with the same intensity i did.
When i first had a house, and need to patch a wall-- i amazed my husband by being able to "re-mix" a batch of paint to match the paint on the wall-- which is hard, since paint usually dries to a different color.
So to me, avacodo and misty fern are two very different colors... some of the hardest colors to name are shades of grey-- was it slate, or lead, or steel, or dove? biege and ecru are very different-- (natural wool and natural linen) I am very picky about colors, and hate when people "match" a blue red to a an orange red-- (it must be akin to some one with a "good ear" hearing me sing!)
we might be able to limit ourselves to 11 basic names for colors... but some colors, for me, are compounds-- a redish red orange (for a tomato, say) or a very redish blue red for a raspberry. raspberry red is very different than tomato red!
