is "dirty blonde" depreciative?

[Laurence Horn]

Ah, but I took "dirty blonde" to be a natural color (as natural as blonde, and thus capable of someone's dyeing for it as well), and thereby differing from "bottle blonde", which is by definition *not* a natural color (unless you're a bottle).

LH

On Mar 25, 2012, at 8:53 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> Along George's line, I take "dirty blonde" as someone (or the hair of
> someone) who has not done a good job of dyeing.  So maybe the OED
> definition needs to clarify that it's depreciative of the hair, not the person?
>
> Joel
>
> At 3/25/2012 09:02 AM, George Thompson wrote:
>> I would take it as pejorative only in the esthetic sense of a color that
>> falls within the range of "blonde", but is less attractive than "golden
>> blonde".  Not a reflexion on the character or personality of the woman
>> (usually, I suppose) under the hair.
>>
>> GAT
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 8:12 PM, Geoffrey Nunberg <
>> nunberg at ischool.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>>
>> > From the OED:
>> >
>> > dirty blonde adj. and n. orig. U.S. (mildly depreciative)  (a) adj.(of the
>> > hair) dark blonde; blonde tinged with a darker colour;  (b) n.a person with
>> > hair of this colour.
>> >
>> > When I was growing up, the term referred simply to a hair color, with no
>> > implication of disapproval.
>> >
>> > Geoff
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> George A. Thompson
>> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
>> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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