Most of you probably have no idea, but the shades of blue are numerous and quite often in printing in color, create a nightmare. The Crayola company is adding to the nightmare.
Remember when blue was the color choice in your box of crayons? It was the color for water, and it was the color for sky. It was the color for blue jeans and eyes. It was a nice blue. If you wanted a darker blue like navy blue, you just colored over lightly with black and there it was.
A few years ago, country blue made the scene for clothing and décor. It is a nice color, and the color-matching fun began for weddings, printing, walls, décor, and more. I don’t think Crayola ever added it to their crayon selections.
But did you read Crayola has a contest going on right now to name a new blue that will take the place of Dandelion in its box of crayon color choices? Crayon fans have the opportunity to name the new blue by submitting name suggestions through Crayola’s website until June 2 (hurry up, that’s next week). On July 1, Crayola will announce five of the top color names for the new blue and allow people to vote through August. The fan-selected color name winner and six grand-prize winners will be announced in early September.
This new brilliant blue color was discovered accidentally by Oregon State University chemists and will soon be the new addition to Crayola crayon boxes. The chemists were heating chemicals in hopes of finding new materials to be used in electronics. In what the university calls a “serendipitous discovery,” one of the chemical mixes came out of the furnace a striking blue. The pigment known as “YInMn” comes from the elements that comprise it: Yttrium, indium, manganese, and oxygen.
The Crayola company told fans in March, the new color would be in the blue family but was mum on any other details. News reports say Crayola chose a new crayon color in the blue family because previous North American consumer polling showed “the color blue time and again has been Americans’ favorite color.”
But this wasn’t always true. Some question whether our ancestors could see blue. So what color did they call the sky on a beautiful clear day? Scientists say ancient people didn’t perceive the color blue because they didn’t have a word for it. Studies say language shapes what we see by making us focus on objects. Blue doesn’t appear at all in Greek stories and other ancient written texts. So scientists believe civilizations didn’t notice the color. Egyptians were said to be the only culture who produced blue dyes and were the first civilization to have a word for the color blue in 2500 BC.
Greek poet Homer in “The Odyssey” famously describes the “wine-dark sea.” In 1858, William Gladstone, who later became a British prime minister, counted the color references in “The Odyssey” and found blue wasn't mentioned at all. Black is mentioned nearly 200 times and white about 100. Red, meanwhile, is mentioned fewer than 15 times, and yellow and green fewer than 10.
It wasn't just the Greeks. Blue also doesn't appear in the Koran, ancient Chinese stories, and an ancient Hebrew version of the Bible, according to a German philologist named Lazarus Geiger.
Another study focused on how Russian speakers have separate words for light blue (goluboy) and dark blue (siniy). MIT recruited 50 people from the Boston area in Massachusetts, half of whom were native Russian speakers. They found the Russians were 10 percent faster at distinguishing between light (goluboy) blues and dark (siniy) blues than at discriminating between blues within the same shade category. A separate study seemed to confirm that while colors may be the same around the world, the language in which they are described has an impact on how they are perceived.
In English, the most popular base colors are blue, pink, and green, while in China red, blue, and green are more prominent. Chinese colors can also relate to objects like salmon, stone, and pine tree. This may be revealing as red in Chinese cultures symbolizes good fortune and joy. It remains a popular color in the country and is affiliated with the current government. There are far more words for blue and green in English than there are in Chinese. By legend, Eskimo has 50 words for snow, wow.
So, get your creative mind going and submit your name for the new blue crayon soon to be in Crayola boxes everywhere.
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INKling of the Week:
“Blue color is everlastingly appointed by the deity to be a source of delight.” -- John Ruskin
Margaret Vander Weerdt can be reached by phone at 641-594-3200, by email at press@netins.net, by fax at 641-594-3243, by mail at PO Box 243, Sully, or if you see me out and about and have some news or inklings for this column, don’t hesitate to bend my ear.
