A question in aesthetics: is pink a real color?

Question

If I mix white paint with blue paint, I get light blue paint.

If I mix white paint with green paint, I get light green paint.

If I mix white paint with red paint, why don't I get light red paint? Why do we need a special word for that one hue?

Nancy Kay: So you don't see questions about aethetics or linguistics as being real philosophy? Then why didn't you skip my question?

whoisgod71: I disgaree. Go to any place that sells educational supplies for preschoolers and you will see that society as a whole, not just me, teaches a color set that consists of: blue, green, yellow, red, orange, purple, pink, brown, black white and mabe gray. One does not see educational materials for preschoolers which see mint as one of the main color types.

Here's an example:
http://www.first-school.ws/theme/cp_colors.htm

Tracy C: Sure, you can call it something else, like lime green, but you are still using the format of adjective-noun. Calling it lime green makes it clear that green is the basic color and the particular type of green is "lime green". But pink still gets its own name and appears in the lists of basic color types.

Kenyai: So do other languages have different sets of basic colors they teach to their children?

GENTLE GIANT: Sorry, but I just don't see how asking about the color pink is the cause of war. I think a more likely cause of war is blaming others for your own inability to answer a question.

Toodles: Ah, another person who decides to attack the questioner when she can't answer.

Both robin's egg blue and lime green still give top billing to blue and green as basic colors. Using the word "pink" robs red of the same fundamental position in the color scheme. In addition, pink can take adjectives of its own, and so we get carnation pink or hot pink or other combinations.

exnihilo: Yet another person who when he (she?) can't give a satisfactory answer to the question resorts to insults. If you are going to use lavender as an example, you could at least spell it correctly. The fact that you are so unfamiliar with lavender sort of makes my point.

Here is another educational site for children:
http://www.preschooleducation.com/sallcolor.shtml

Note that the colors are: blue, green, orangem pink, purple, red, white, and yellow. No lavender. Not even any grey.

Truth: So why does red get the same treatment as black?

Christin K: I looked at the URL which you provided, and it lists pink, as well as darkpink and lightpink. There is a darkred listed too. I didn't see a lightred listed. I even tried search on the page for lightred. Maybe you didn't see what you thought you did.

brand_new_mo...: I guess whether pink is our flesh color depends on what color flesh we have. :)

finlandssvensk: Am I saying that colors are only "real" if they have their own name? I don't think so. I think I am asking a question and one of the presuppositions of my question is that even though pink has a name, it seems like it is really only light red and thus not deserving a position as one of the basic colors.

Answer 1

how about light brown, tan?

Answer 2

haha, good question.
The more technologically advanced a culture is, the more colors it recognizes and names. The color Pink was named in the 17th century. Sheakespeaer did not know that word.
We do have names for "light green" like sage, apple, aquamarine, willow, pea, etc. We also have names for "Light blue". But you're right, the pinks are grouped under the Pink family and not the "light red" family. My only guess is that pink is our flesh color and therefore more important to us.

Answer 3

You're saying that colors are only "real" if they have their own name? So light blue is less real than pink? In Swedish and Finnish (and I assume other languages too) the word for pink, directly translated, means light red. So if a color is only a "real" color if it has it's own name, that would mean that pink is real in English but not real in other languages. I would say, as someone else did, that this is more a problem related to that the language is inconsistent.

Answer 4

When you mix white and blue paint you do get light blue paint, but you also get "baby" blue, "powder blue" and "robin's egg blue" depending on the shade of blue you've mixed the white with. Same goes for green: you might just get light green, but you might also get "mint" green, or "sage" or "pastel green."

In other words, it's just a name. Call it light red if you want to. No one will dispute it. We have special color names for every shade on the planet--just look through any clothing catalogue. An "orange" shirt might be described as Pumpkin, Mango, Rust, Tangerine or any number of other descriptors.

There's really no standard for naming colors.

Answer 5

Pink is a color made by mixing red and white and sometimes described as being a light red, but it is more accurately a bright undersaturated red. There are many different shades of this color.

"Pink" was not a color word known to Shakespeare: it was invented in the 17th century to describe the light red flowers of pinks, flowering plants in the genus Dianthus, possibly named from the "pinked" edges of their petals appearing to have been cut with pinking shears.

Answer 6

Of course pink is a "real" color. just because it has a special name does not make it un-real. And how about baby blue? It's real just the same as pink.
I think that pink may be the only "light" named color because way back when languages were being formed they wanted to differentiate between different colors on/inside our bodies. (like our red blood, but pink fingernails, etc...)That's just my guess though, kinda like how the Eskimos supposedly have a bunch of different names for snow, but I only have things like "wet snow" or "fluffy snow" etc.

Answer 7

Its more a question of semantics that a question of aesthetics.

If you mix white with black, you don't get light black. You get gray.

Pink and its variants (hot pink, carnation pink, etc) are most definitely colors, because their "temperatures" can be found on the Kelvin color scale.

Answer 8

I guess you're right, but would the world be like if pink were called light red???

Light blue=robin's egg blue
Light green=lime green

Didn't you color with the Crayola 64 pack when you were younger or are you simply void of an imagination?

Answer 9

And light purple is lavender. And off white is cream, or egg shell, or vanilla...

Define real: Pink is just a word to describe something.

Answer 10

you are thinking like a man too much my friend

if you are a woman and mix white and blue paint you get aqua

if you are a woman and mix white and green paint you get mint

mix some green paint with a little dark paint and you get forrest

your premise is faulty

Answer 11

This is just a cultural standard. An element of the English language.