Bears and why they mostly are called otherwise

[Dr. John E. McLaughlin]

[I (John McLaughlin) wrote]

>> Berlin and Kay have a very precise meaning for "basic" (not "primary", which
>> is a term of optics representing Red, Yellow, and Blue only, as opposed to
>> "secondary", which is a term for Orange, Green, and Purple).

> [Ed]

> I suppose you mean magenta, yellow and cyan, the primary colors if you
> consider subtractive color mixing, like in printing (one layer over another
> on white paper, masking part of the spectrum). Together they give black.
> Otherwise, the primary colors (for additive mixing, like TV, i.e. adding
> light from three sources) are red, green, blue. Together they give white.

> Just to keep things clear.

You're quite right about other color systems.  When you're talking about
color mixing in printing (magenta, cyan, yellow) or blending light (red,
green, blue), you're quite right.  The traditional color palette, however,
is based on paint mixing.  This the old red, yellow, blue primary color
scheme.  What was a simple issue thirty years ago is now much more
complicated with computer display color issues interfering with painting and
printing.  In discussing Berlin and Kay, it is more useful (IMHO) to stick
with the painting palette since those colors (red, blue, and yellow) also
are the first three color words to develop after white and black.  Of course
these color terms represent a range of colors and not just single values,
but the center of the range is usually always within the range we would call
'red', 'blue', and 'yellow'.

John E. McLaughlin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
mclasutt at brigham.net

Program Director
Utah State University On-Line Linguistics
http://english.usu.edu/lingnet

English Department
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Utah State University
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