Monday, October 7, 2013

Colorful Language

The new $100 bill comes out tomorrow and its very colorful.  Almost looks Canadian.  And I joked on Twitter "Money isn't green anymore" (even though the back of the bill is mostly green).

And that got me thinking (oh-oh) about how we use color in our language.  Here are some examples I thought of off the top of my head:
  • In the black: making a profit, not broke
  • In the red: not making a profit, broke
  • Red ink: something that causes you not to make a profit
  • Red tape: regulations, bureaucracy
  • Green: money, wealth
  • Greenbacks: money, cash
  • Green: environmentally friendly
  • In the pink: healthy
  • Blue: sad, depressed
  • Yellow journalism: bad journalism (you know, like the New York Times)
  • Golden: good (this might be more in reference to the metal than the color)
  • Red state: conservative/Republican
  • Blue state: liberal/Democrat
  • Black list: list of banned things or people
  • Yellow Dog Democrat: someone (in the U.S. South) who votes Democrat, even if it's a yellow dog running
And there's got to be more!  I'm not sure if other languages do this to the extent we do in English.

If you have more examples, please leave them in the comments!

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