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Re: Fw: Fwd: color and word "blue", not Nabokov J-1,may9
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----- Forwarded message from jerry_friedman@yahoo.com -----
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 16:00:45 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Fw: Fwd: color and word "blue", not Nabokov J-1,may9
----------------- Message requiring your approval (73 lines)
------------------
--- "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello" <jansy@aetern.us>
> To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2005 9:52 PM
> Subject: Re: Fwd: color and word "blue", not Nabokov
>
>
> Carolyn and Mary Krimmel
> I wonder what the seafarers saw in that which so completely surrounded
> them as did the sky and the sea, plus the changing colors following
> cloudy
> or sunny days with warnings about deathly tempests or unstirring calm.
> They must have been specialists in what we sometimes too easily label as
> "blue", be it celestial or marine.
> And yet their "bluishnesses" must have been felt as pertaining to a
> different ( phenomenical, transient, "iridal") category from,say, a
> painted
> blue cup or a tinted blue ribbon.
> Jansy
Not necessarily. Gold used to be described as "red" (as you know
from the Oldmanhatten word "ridge"), but I'll bet people still
put it in the same category as daffodils, not red tulips. Shade
points out, but we all know already, that "white" people aren't
really white. The use of a color word might be a matter of
convention.
(I wonder whether the Greeks of Homer's time had blue-painted cups.
Did they have blue paint at all--maybe made from ground lapis lazuli?
Or blue dyes, maybe indigo?)
More below.
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
...
> > > > > At 06:30 PM 5/7/05 -0700, you, Carolyn, wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > >An interesting point - - the ancients had no word for (and
> didn't
> > see?)
> > > > > >blue.
> > > > >
> > > > > An interesting question. If they did see blue, it is hard to
> imagine
> > > > having
> > > > > no word. If they had no word, it is hard to suppose that they
> saw
> > blue.
...
> > > > > Mary Krimmel
Not so hard. As far as I can tell, by the same logic no one can
hear musical notes or chords unless they know their names; no one
could have told one chess move from another until notation had
been invented. On the contrary, animals with color vision can
recognize colors (flying to the blue disk but not the red one if
nectar has been provided only at blue disks).
I won't deny the power of words and other notation, but it's clear
that a lot can happen without words. Also, most people aren't as
verbal as Nabokov and his typical readers.
Jerry Friedman is trying to make this on-topic by referring to
Nabokov, chess, and butterflies.
__________________________________
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----- End forwarded message -----
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 16:00:45 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Fw: Fwd: color and word "blue", not Nabokov J-1,may9
----------------- Message requiring your approval (73 lines)
------------------
--- "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello" <jansy@aetern.us>
> To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2005 9:52 PM
> Subject: Re: Fwd: color and word "blue", not Nabokov
>
>
> Carolyn and Mary Krimmel
> I wonder what the seafarers saw in that which so completely surrounded
> them as did the sky and the sea, plus the changing colors following
> cloudy
> or sunny days with warnings about deathly tempests or unstirring calm.
> They must have been specialists in what we sometimes too easily label as
> "blue", be it celestial or marine.
> And yet their "bluishnesses" must have been felt as pertaining to a
> different ( phenomenical, transient, "iridal") category from,say, a
> painted
> blue cup or a tinted blue ribbon.
> Jansy
Not necessarily. Gold used to be described as "red" (as you know
from the Oldmanhatten word "ridge"), but I'll bet people still
put it in the same category as daffodils, not red tulips. Shade
points out, but we all know already, that "white" people aren't
really white. The use of a color word might be a matter of
convention.
(I wonder whether the Greeks of Homer's time had blue-painted cups.
Did they have blue paint at all--maybe made from ground lapis lazuli?
Or blue dyes, maybe indigo?)
More below.
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
...
> > > > > At 06:30 PM 5/7/05 -0700, you, Carolyn, wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > >An interesting point - - the ancients had no word for (and
> didn't
> > see?)
> > > > > >blue.
> > > > >
> > > > > An interesting question. If they did see blue, it is hard to
> imagine
> > > > having
> > > > > no word. If they had no word, it is hard to suppose that they
> saw
> > blue.
...
> > > > > Mary Krimmel
Not so hard. As far as I can tell, by the same logic no one can
hear musical notes or chords unless they know their names; no one
could have told one chess move from another until notation had
been invented. On the contrary, animals with color vision can
recognize colors (flying to the blue disk but not the red one if
nectar has been provided only at blue disks).
I won't deny the power of words and other notation, but it's clear
that a lot can happen without words. Also, most people aren't as
verbal as Nabokov and his typical readers.
Jerry Friedman is trying to make this on-topic by referring to
Nabokov, chess, and butterflies.
__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail Mobile
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail
----- End forwarded message -----