Technicolors: a rant.

Look, if you want to sell something - a pair of boots or a sofa, say - and you plan to sell it by means of a catalogue, advertisement or website - then it's no good describing its colour as forest, mango, vole, cherry, or trout.

Sunrise will not relay enough information.

Neither will flame, calypso, festival or pony.

I mean, is forest green or brown? Is cherry red, or something nearer cerise (see what I did, there?)? 

Mango - is that yellow or green?

Is that pony a bay or a chestnut?

And, oh, good grief, and that's not a rainbow trout, is it?

Please, please, we can't be sure half the time from the pictures, so just tack a simple green onto the end of forest and we'll know where we are. 

Sunset orange. Festival red. Pony brown.

You never know, I might even buy something, then.


photo by Ken Hammond/USDA

Word To Use Today: trout. This satisfying word comes from the Old English trūht, from the Latin tructa, from the Greek troktēs, which means sharp-toothed fish.