h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I vaguely remember something about fair/red/ginger people being mainly found in northern latitudes becouse they are more prone to skin cancer . The gene has died out due to natural selection further south .

best fishes.....tod

I seemed to attract red haired people at school, 3 of my friends were. I was quite of one's lovely long red hair.

I also had a passing "thing" for a red haired boy

Apparently Prince Charles was a bit shaken by Prince Harry's red tinge.

Do red haired people go grey later?

I knew (by sight) a rather lady with ginger hair which was supposedly her own colour.

My Gran was redheaded when she was younger which faded to a reddish brown as she got older. She died at 78, with not a grey hair on her head!!

I have a similar hair colour - I'm not ginger, which I think is a coppery colour- a reddish blonde, and I have no grey hairs at 35.

harrys hair being ginger point ponder but theres nooo mistake about the ears one has daddys lugs.

the term ginger, as a distinct hair colour, and its negative derivations, seems to be a word used with much greater frequency in britain. other places just use red, blonde or light brown. robert redford for example is never referred to as ginger in the us.

seems to me that most people who are termed ginger are really just blondes with a reddish tint. wiki for example puts the colour in its blonde entry. further, the old english word 'fair' was used to describe both blondes AND ginger haired people and still is in some places even today. so historically this suggests gingers were not always considered red heads (as per coppertops).

Not sure I fully follow your distinction between ginger and redhead, antigravitas

My sisters are both ginger - the middle one a browny auburn, and the youngest very definitely vivid ginger (with some grey hairs, so sorry but that claim can be scotched).

Mid-sis is fond of blonde highlights, youngest hasn't dyed hers since she had a green triangle in it during her punk years . And I like to liven up my boring brown barnet with more lively hues of copper/ iced tea/ chestnut.

Red hair is I've never been able to understand why folk would think it something to hide . Presumably those who dis the red are jealous. Growing up, it was always the red haired females who were the most sought after and unobtainable in my school/college/work.

(despite my GF being a red-head, i was in no way coersed into the above statement)

I believe the highest incidence is in Ireland, so Britain as a whole is likely to have more than most other countries. Genes will out!

The use of ginger as a derogatory description is presumably cultural. Perhaps countries that have a more mixed ancestry have alternative groups that receive stereotyped nomenclature.

Since ginger/red is a genetic mutation, it's unlikely there would have been any tribes or groupings in ancient times that were entirely ginger. As such, it would mark individuals out as "different".

And we all know what happens to people who look different.

I've heard the Romans routinely executed redheads. Boudicea was a ginger, which probably influenced them a bit. Genghis Khan was also a ginger.

Ginger is quite common in the middle east, particularly Afghanistan, Pakistan and the whole Persia area. Legend has it that this is a legacy of Alexander the Great.

I would expect ginger to linger on in outlying areas like Ireland & the Highlands of Scotland. Such areas were quite inaccessible and the communities there were tightly knit, leading to less possibilities for mating with outsiders.

>Since ginger/red is a genetic mutation, <



*Every* biological characteristic originally comes about from genetic mutations that happen to be selected for because of particular environmental conditions. This is fundamental to the theory of evolution and natural selection.

I must concur with those here who find red hair attractive. The prejudice against it is rather strange as it looks so good.

I was quite taken aback a couple of years ago when I had added some red to my hair and the two little girls of a friend of mine, suddenly called me 'gypsy' and in not a nice tone. Obviously to them 'gypsy' was something negative. Quite bizarre. Needless to say I put them straight in thee kindest way possible.

swl. the berbers have some incidence of red hair. however most of the red hair you have observed in the islamic world is actually the use of henna. the prophet apparently gave instructions to use it, even in the beards of men. italian women used to go nuts on it at one time too, as per gina lollobrigida.

the actual distinction between red hair and ginger hair seems to me quite obvious. ginger hair is that sandy colour, named, presumably, from the colour of the spice. true red hair isn't to my eye even remotely a similar colour. and since most of us from the british isles have at least some red in our hair it expresses differently. some red in a dark haired person comes out as auburn. some red in a blonde person comes out as ginger.

real redheads are a rare breed to be sure. the gorgeous woman currently at the top of the wiki entry on red heads would be one example. that isn't ginger, surely....

Gengis Khan was ginger? Now that I just can´t imagine. I also think when you say ginger you mean something else than me. To me ginger is the kind of orangey hair people like Chris Evans has. Some people also have a darker red, I don´t know if you brits also use the word ginger for that. The people with orangey hair don´t tend to look that good. Partly because they often have an overabundance of freckles. Sand coloured hair is not ginger though, that´s just a darker kind of blonde.

Also the pale skin associated with being ginger isn´t that good when you get away from nothern europe, due to the sun. One reason you wouldn´t have many of them. Some say the neanderthals were red-haired.

Julianne Moore would be an example of what I see as ginger. Though I´ve never seen a piece of ginger in the supermarket that was anything but white. Also red hair is controlled by a recessive gene, so a certain geographic isolation might be needed to keep up the populations of it.

"Gengis Khan was ginger?"
possibly. Although other sources describe him as blue eyed and dark haired.

Although in looking that up I found an interesting bit on w*k*pedia which claims that "Chinese and Muslim sources of the 7th–12th centuries AD describe the Kyrgyz as red-haired with fair complexion and green (blue) eyes"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrgyz

so I guess there was a fair old concentration there in the past too.

Yes blue eyes are also due to a recessive gene. Just goes to show all this uninformed nonsense about a lot of this stuff in genetical sense only feeds prejudice and ignorance.

By the way the 'Tartan Army' that support Scotland frequently wear wigs of red hair with a tammy hat attached. I think they look rather cute.

Just to be clear. A mutation can either be a recessive or a dominant gene. Whether or not a mutation is selected for in a population is due to a variety of environmental factors. In terms of hair colour our distant ancestors, who almost certainly evolved in Africa, probably all had black hair with a high melanin content because of factors to do with strength of sunlight. As early human populations spread around the globe; different climatic factors would have selected for different hair colour mutations that occured. These may have been due to associated factors to do with ability to synthesise vitamins in a climate with little sunlight. Also most genetics is highly complex and some genes are selected for because the DNA maybe on the same part of the chromosome as some other gene associated, that was advantageous in some other way.

Obviously all this is speculation but as I said all characteristics depend upon whether they are in general selected for or not or are deleterious. And presumably the red hair gene(s) was not deleterious, and was most likely advantageous in some way for such a lot of people to still have it.

Lucky b*ggers I call them.

PS The reason I'm making a big deal of this is that I know easy it is for people who don't properly understand how population genetics work, to leap on concepts to justify a certain prejudice. I certainly wouldn't describe myself as an expert on this but I've got a good handle on the basics.

What prejudice?

I hate it when arguments about genetics get heated

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/3233392.stm