Daft Shades

I’m amazed by how many different words there are for colours. You can’t say navy blue any more; you have to see it and then say darker or lighter or paler. We even use plants and foods to describe certain shades like duck egg blue and fuchsia; though I prefer the term prostitute pink to describe that one. And what the hell are teal and turquoise? If you google them you get at least six different shades, depending on who you’re buying it from. Imagine walking into a store and asking for a mauve lamp. Would that be in purple or pink? And it’s no good going from the picture alone. You’d have to look at whether the lamp’s on or off and how that would affect the colour shade. Even when you’ve got it out of the box and compared it to a picture on your phone, there’s still no way of knowing whether it matches up unless you take it home and compare it to the rest of the room.