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So, this is kinda weird, but general colors didn’t have names for a long time. Like in Greek texts by Homer he describes the water color as dark wine color because the name “blue” wasn’t a word. So it’s possible when they named a “red onion” purple wasn’t a color and considered a shade of red.

Also as others have said purple was the color of royalty and they didn’t want an association.

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FrChazzz@lemmus.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
It’s kind of wild when you learn that words for blue are relatively new in human language.

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- Seleni@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  In Japanese it’s the reverse; ‘blue’ is used for blue and green; designating green as the different color is relatively recent for them
  
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  - Passerby6497@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Huh, so Kentucky isn’t the only place with bluegrass
    
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- koella@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  I started thinking that it kind of makes sense as blue is not a common naturally occurring color and then I remembered the sky.
  
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  - Schmoo@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    A lot of old writing refers to the sky and the sea as green.
    
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    TRock@feddit.dk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    What color did they say the grass was?
    
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  - Buddahriffic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Yeah, that’s the part I have trouble with. Leaves are green, the sky is blue. They are very different colours. It’s not ambiguous like whether teal or turquoise is green or blue (I could easily see either of those being labelled as either blue or green), or different shades of the same colour like fuscia or maroon. They are different primary colours of light.
    
    It’s just weird to me that two very common every day colours that don’t look anything alike wouldn’t get distinct names. I understand that the blue photoreceptors we have are the newest ones and are less sensitive than the red and green ones, but I wouldn’t have figured that our evolution of it to the point where we see what we currently see (if you aren’t colour blind) would have been that recent. I expected hundreds of thousands of years, not tens of thousands or just thousands, which is what it would need to be to explain cultures that didn’t differentiate between the two until recently.
    
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  - mrmisses@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    There are blue flowers
    
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    NABDad@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    You mean those green flowers?
    
    -ancient Greek guy (probably)
    
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postmateDumbass@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Cant have pesants eating royal onion now can we?

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