However, for English speakers who create with words (poets and songwriters) orange may be more frustrating than energising. It’s an English word (along with Purple and Silver) that doesn’t rhyme with any other English words. Mind you two composers (Charles Fox and Normal Gimbel) were inspired by this fact to write a song called ‘Oranges, Poranges’ in the musical ‘H.R. Pufnstuf’. Here's the chorus:
Oranges poranges, who says,
oranges poranges, who says,
oranges poranges, who says?
there ain't no rhyme for oranges!
You can find this song being performed on Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDoSl-M5tmM if you’d like a distraction from beading or other things in your life.
The song may not be the most inspiring song in the world but reputedly orange décor can inspire higher sales in cafeterias, so I wonder if the same works for beadwork on Etsy? I wonder if my orange beadwork will inspire higher Etsy sales for me?
Whether or not, orange inspires sales or not, it’s hard to imagine a world without orange and using the word orange to describe it. However, the English-speaking world did without the word orange until the English court of King Henry V111 in 1512. Prior to this time the English referred to the colour orange as yellow-red (geoluhread in Old English). The English word for the colour orange comes from the Sanskrit word for the fruit ‘orange’, which is naranga. In reflecting on our current English words for the orange colour spectrum it seems the world of fruit and vegetables is at the heart of many of the words we use. Here’s ten foods that I could think of that are also used in the English language as ‘colour’ words for variations on the colour orange.
1. Apricot
2. Mango
3. Peach
4. Tangerine
5. Carrot
6. Pumpkin
7. Saffron
8. Canteloupe
9. Cumquat
10. Sweet potato
I haven’t checked if you can create rhymes for each of these words, or whether or not they appear in songs about them but I do know that they provide me as a beader with a language to describe the energising colours of orange in my beadwork. Can you think of others?
Sources
- http://www.trivia-library.com/b/facts-history-and-meanings-of-the-color-orange.htm
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_(colour)
- http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/a/colorpsych.htm
2 comments:
fun post!
Love that vibrant orange.
I'd never thought about it being a non-rhyming word tho'.
something to think about.
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