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Sunday 9 March 2014

Sunday Rest: greige. Word Not To Use Today.

I feel rather sorry for this word.

Greige sounds just so...boring.

Well, let's face it, greige is boring. Merely typing the word is surely enough to make several of my brain cells drop dead from simple ennui.

Greige is a sort of pale greyish beige, and I've always assumed that the word is itself a mixture of the words grey and beige.  Blending these two words would have been a truly horrible thing to do (and manufacturing a paint of that colour would be even worse, though I'm sorry to report that greige is all-too-fashionable at the moment).

But greige has nothing to do with blending grey and beige. It is innocent.

Quite, quite innocent.

It's still mind-numbingly dismal and boring, though, isn't it.

Word Not To Use Today: greige. This word comes form the French word grège, which means raw, and describes the colour of yarn before it is dyed.


 

6 comments:

  1. Oh my. It is indeed a very sad, dismal word.
    It's enough to suck the happy out of you.
    I hope we don't have any greige days ahead!

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    1. Sorry, I bet that's the last thing you need at the moment, Jingles. Still...I suppose at least we can be glad that the snow doesn't come down greige, can't we. And, actually, gamboge would be even worse.

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  2. But Sally, spare a thought for those of us that balk at loud noises, exciting news or confident yellows (I had to have a valerian tea just to read your blog today.)

    Greige soothes. Greige calms. Greige helps you to live life to the half-full, because you don't wanna spill now do you?

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    Replies
    1. Ah. Clueless, half-full is tolerable; but what if one's life is half-empty?

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  3. I am amazed and astonished as so often on Word Den. I would have wagered a lot of money on greige being a cross between grey and beige. There you go. Learn something new every day. But I am a lover of grey and non lover of beige. As for gamboge, I love the word but must look up what colour it actually is!

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    Replies
    1. Oh dear! Forgive me, Adele, but I'm afraid I have issues with gamboge. You can read all about it here: http://thewordden.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/sunday-rest-word-not-to-use-today.html

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