The Language Of Color

Colors do not only exude character or attitude. It can also represent moods, holidays and enliven language.

Here are some of the widely used colors and their language:

1. Red. Red means passion, love, battle and celebration. ‘To see red’ means to be angry. In connection to business parlance, ‘to see red’ means losing money.

2. Blue. Blue connotes loyalty and faithfulness. This is the reason why most brides carry with them something blue on their wedding day. This color also means of noble descent. A color used by the ‘blue-blooded’ individuals like aristocrats and persons of equivalent echelons. The color blue is also used in some phrases like ‘out of the blue’ or from an unknown source or unexpected time and ‘into the blue’ or into the unknown.

3. Purple. This is a royal color. A lot of royalties use purple robes as an emblem of authority and rank. In addition, even Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen loved the color purple. In order to acquire the same she orders her servants to soak 20,000 Purpura snails for ten days. Purple is also good to enhance imagination. In fact, artist like Leonardo da Vinci believes that this color heighten imagination ten times. Same thing with Richard Wagner. For him purple serves as an inspirational color. In speech and writing, we have the phrase ‘purple speech’ which means profane talk and ‘purple prose’ which is a writing of exaggerations and ornamentations.

4. Green. Green symbolizes jealousy, victory, nature and youth. It is also considered as a healing color. We have phases like ‘a person with green thumb’, ‘green with envy’ and ‘green-eyed monster’. The first phrase means that a person is good in growing plants. The second means full of jealousy or envy and the last means jealousy.

5. Yellow. Yellow means deceit, warning and danger. It may also mean brightness and jolliness. In communication, if someone calls you ‘yellow streak’, he means you are a coward.

6. White. It means peace, purity, truce, innocence, devotion and enthusiasm. When we say ‘white heat’, it means intense passion or anger.

7. Black. Black means elegance, sophistication, darkness, secrecy and evil. In business, ‘in the black’ means it is making money. Other phrases using this color are ‘black sheep’ and ‘black humor’. The first means an outcast and the last means unhealthy or gloomy humor. In history, ‘Blackshirts’ is the name for the security troops of Hitler. They are also known as S.S.

Everyone must know the meaning as well as the significance of colors. This is to avoid misrepresentation especially in the field of marketing. Printers and web designers as well must also be acquainted with this to give the right impression in their web designs as well as color printing services.