"Colorado"

[Rick Mc Callister]

Colorado for "red" is universal in Spanish. You're right that in Austin, it
is a greenish color but, as I remember it is kind of ruddy-looking. It's
now "tamed" by dams, which may have caused it to change color by lessening
the amount of sediment BUT I don't pretend to be a geolist or hydrologist :>

>        I had always thought, knowing next to nothing of Spanish, that
>"colorado" was cognate with "colored", and meant the same.  Perhaps the
>meaning 'red' is recent?  Certainly the Colorado, if it is anything, is
>green, not red, though the Llano, a tributary, might perhaps be said to be
>pink due to granitic sand.  The general rule, from my observations, is that
>the Colorado and rivers SW of it are green (or if small enough clear) while
>the Brazos and rivers NE of it are muddy brown.  No red rivers around here,
>that I have seen ...

>Dr. David L. White

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701