Is the naming of colours subjective?

The worst thing is when you're half way through painting a room, thinking "hmmm, I'm sure this was more greeny coloured... perhaps it'll dry greener"

Optical illusion: Dress colour debate goes global www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-31656935
Does anyone remember this from 2015? The colours in the dress look white and gold to some people and blue and black to others.

My DH and myself ‘agreed to disagree’ about blues and greens, as we so obviously were seeing them differently. I often find that a colour that I liked in a shop looks completely different in natural light, and also in the lighting at home.
I recently bought some lovely rose pink wool, to knit a sweater for my GD. It turned into a rather nasty candyfloss colour on the way home.
As for buying clothes online......you just never know what colour will turn up in the parcel!

Some language (I forget which, so this isn't a very compelling factoid) has only one word for blue/green.

In English, the word "orange" was coined only after we started importing the fruits. Before that, orange things (which are fairly rare in nature) were red, or possibly yellow or golden. That's why a redbreast, later called a "Robin" redbreast, is so named although he actually has an orange breast. Fair hair, in days gone by, was described as "yellow", which would sound rather unflattering now.

Blues and greens are the hardest to decide on, I think.

I've sometimes had difficulty differentiating between some shades of green, yellow and blue.

Oh and teal is edging towards blue rather than green

welbeck, in Scotland 'glas' means green, as in Glasgow 'dear green place'! So even the Celts saw the colours differently.

To me most shades of teal look far more blue than green. I did read once that people all perceive colour differently.

We bought a car that was described as Mediterranean Blue in the brochure. I saw it as a deep turquoise colour, but my husband and others saw it as green.

Marron is French for sweet chestnut. One of my favourite treats is a box of marrons glacés, candied chestnuts. They end to be expensive. The use of the word for a colour (maroon, marron) comes from there.

sorry that lol was for Callistemon's dh and his maroon jumper
I never liked blue painted walls until we redecorated the children's rooms and they chose a certain blue off the dulux mix your own colour chart. It was cheaper than cheaper colours as they liked it for years and years and didn't need to redecorate. It was fascinating watching the assistant adding the colours to the base coat, as well as blue there was a great dollop of raspberry pink, and I think it was the addition of a warm red that made the difference, it is a warm blue not a cold icy blue

lol!

Thanks oodles I’ve always been fascinated by the things we take so much for granted in our own culture, like concepts of colour , and how differently they may be elsewhere.

I bought DH a purple jumper (Woolovers).
He never wears it so I asked if I could have it.
He said, "no, I do wear it quite often with my purple shirt, in fact, I'm wearing them today."

He was wearing a dark maroon-red jumper with a maroon shirt

susiewoosie that is a very interesting article. Some languages only have shiny or matt, some such as Latin have different words for black and white depending on whether or not the object is matt or shiny. People can see colours unless they have a degree of colour blindness, but we describe colours according to our society don't we.
Our victorian or earlier ancestors wouldn't have needed to know what teal was, no internet to choose soft furnishings off, if they could afford soft furnishings at all they'd just chose from what was avalable that would look good with the rest. Nowadays we have different frequencies of light bulbs, warm or cold white, so things look different under different light sources, to how they look in daylight [and there are different brightnesses of daylight] shiny materials can indeed look a different colour to matt ones. In the 18th century when the affluent wore clothes made from material woven with silver thread you would shine when you were dancing under chandeliers. Many of the gradations of colour we recognise we call by comparative names, cherry red, oxblood red, peacock blue, lemon, tangerine, theywould make no sense to those who did not know what a cherry or a peacock was, but they might recognise the colour of their favourite berry or a parrot if they were the same
blue/green is an area of colour where many languages are different, if it is significant to distinguish there is always the pantones or the Dulux colour mixing charts

I bought a jumper, my husband said he was surprised I bought it, because I really dislike brown, to me it looks a dark shade of pink!

He’s put me off wearing it though.

as a child i used to like mauve, a gentle lavender-ish tint.
dont hear of it much now. everywhere is lurid purple, even the word sounds a bit violent to me; dont like it.
colour names are bound to be subjective.
any welsh people here. i was told the word in welsh for blue, glas, is actually the colour of a river, so bluey-green.
maron is brown in french i believe, poss there are other words from items, like tan, chocolate, just as we have oatmeal, wine or burgundy, tangerine, primrose etc.
i think mauve was a made-up colour, was it the first synthetic dye, poss france 1870s ?

I’ve just had some teal curtains made. I sent off for samples beforehand as I know this colour can vary hugely.

The samples ranged from deep, deep green, through various shades and finally a pale duck egg blue.

I think everyone sees colour differently! My DH often says a colour is one thing and I see a different, though same colour family, shade. In the great scheme of things, does it matter!!!?

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any more puroon yarn to finish the project! as it was discontinued.

I don’t see blue either trendy

Puroon sounds great,

Well for me teal is def a green , I don’t see blue

Callistemon

I love that word, sounds a gorgeous colour.