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

A colleague of mine claims he can feel colours. Why only last week he told me he felt blue.

On a separate matter people say "in the pink" to mean good health. But can brown or black people use this term? If not, do they have an equivalent expression for good health such as "I am in brown!" or "I am in the black".

On a separate note why do people say "I'm in the red" to mean in debt and "in the black" to mean in credit

Sorry for all the questions I am a bit green behind the ears.

>On a separate note why do people say "I'm in the red" to mean in debt and "in the black" to mean in credit

Actually that one is fairly easy;

Many accountants write positive numbers using black ink and negative numbers with red ink.

If you look at the formatting options for numbers in your spread-sheet program this is probably one of the options.

In the US they call the Friday after Thanksgiving 'Black Friday', as the start of Christmas shopping usually puts most stores into showing a profit after purchasing all the inventory.

I don't have a clue on the other question

FS

Thanks "Black friday" sounds like a "bad friday" ... black is often depicted as "bad" ... but in that case I suppose "black friday" is like a "good" friday for the balance books.

I think the Italians just before the rennaissance started to use "modern" accounting methods. It would be interesting to find out when red ink started to be used to represent "negative" numbers.

Black Monday used to be the name given to the
stock market crash in 1929. So in spite of the
logic of post-Thanksgiving retail sales putting
stores in the black, I have to shake my head when
I hear it. Nobody seems to remember Black Monday.

~jwf~

Blue Monday is a lot more commonly heard these days.

I guess people still hate going back to work or school
after a weekend.


~jwf~

Why is "blue" used for describing depression, unmotivated, dejected, down in the dumps? Sky blue and blue sea don't conjure up depression so I wonder whether the blue of depression is more dark blue towards black.

Oh, oh, oh...I know that one. Or I thought I did. It seems nobody agrees.

According to my Yiddish prof in Germany, it's not really 'blue'. It's 'b'lo', which is Hebrew, hence Yiddish, for 'without'. Or at least, that's what my prof told me.

On Monday, one was without money, having spent it on the weekend. And without much desire to go back to work.

According to this German book, the expression goes back at least to 1801 in Germany, where it's 'blauer Montag'. But originally, it had something to do with Lent. Which would definitely match the Yiddish meaning of 'without'. It also meant to refuse to work hard on a Monday, because you didn't feel like it.

http://books.google.com/books?id=4FtclaWzNfkC&pg=PA188&lpg=PA188&dq=blue+monday+etymology&source=bl&ots=QE511nHrg9&sig=kqAKA1-r8Co2Xs0O97vs4H65JZs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6vAJUanXG4nk9ASXxYDwBQ&ved=0CDMQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=blue%20monday%20etymology&f=false

Why Yiddish? Because in Germany, London, and the US back in the day, Yiddish ended up in a lot of working-class slang.

Whether that has anything to do with the 'blues', I'm not sure. But it would fit. And it wouldn't have anything to do with colour.

Curiously ye olde British equivalent of the American
saying 'feeling blue' is to be in 'a brown study'.
One man's blue funk is another man's brown study.

I dare say no more about the etymology of blue and
the blues than to offer a reminder that is of black,
Afro-American origins. They call their music the blues
and we expand upon that idea to include all sorts of
sadness and melancholia.

I did once hear that it comes from an aura of dark blue
light that surrounds the heads of those in misery but I
hesitate to incur the wrath of those who might say that
such an idea was a racist reference to some old voodoo
mumbo-jumbo.

One would actually have to believe that Afro-Americans
have slightly different receptors and a colour perception
that ventures deeper into the ultra-violet frequencies, and
of course we are now taught that we may not make such
distinctions based on racial variances. Nor make any gross
generalisation about preferences for purple cars, purple
rain, bright yellow outerwear or any disinclination to reds
beyond raspberry berets and orange jumpsuits.


~jwf~

I always thought it was called "Black Friday" with a negative connotation, because the shopping experience was so unpleasantly hectic/crowded on that day.

Ah, ~jwf~, I feel I should take issue there...

As I understand it, 'feeling blue' is a negative sort of thing - in low spirits.

In a brown study though isn't - it's a 'contemplating one's navel' (or novel) sort of thing where you have, say, an intractable problem, have failed to find a solution and are just sitting there letting it wash over you in a vaguely hopeful way.


but come to think of it... perhaps it's not such a strong issue that I take

Aha! Here we go then.

A complete analysis of the meaning of colour
done by one of the whirled's leading marketing
specialists who does a weekly CBC program on
the subject of advertising and thought control,
called "Under The Influence".

This 'colour' show aired today Feb 16.2013 and is
currently at the top of the list of recent episodes.
There should be a 'Listen' button below the blurb.

Hopefully it will be archived there for a while but
it will also be available at iTunes indefinitely.

If my link doesn't bring up that specific episode
search through the backlog of the program "Under
The Influence" for the episode called:
"Colour Schemes: How Colours Make Us Buy"

The program runs about half an hour and has
much more info and details than this thread
could ever have covered. Who'da thought the
Beatles 'White Album' was so pivotal?

http://www.cbc.ca/undertheinfluence/


~jwf~

Better still, but perhaps not a permanent link
is the 'read along' page that accompanies the
audio available at the 'Listen' button.

http://www.cbc.ca/undertheinfluence/season-1/2013/02/16/colour-schemes-how-colours-make-us-buy-1/

It includes visual material to highlight the content.
Inlcuding those fabulous Fibreglass Pink adverts from
the 1980s that established a precedent regarding the
copyrighting and trademarking of specific colours.


~jwf~

test

Uhm....

Ickle?


~jwf~