Have you ever gotten into a discussion with a woman on colours? It seems that, while some people have ‘absolute hearing’ (pinpoint any frequency to the right note), there is also a kind of ‘absolute colour perception’, and women seem more often blessed with it. While us men have the habit of calling anything with a red/blue mix ‘purple’, life is actually not that simple. There is violet, mauve, orchid and half a dozen variations on those.
To make things even more difficult for Belgian men: we actually have two words in Dutch: ‘paars’ is the equivalent of ‘purple’ in English, while ‘purper’ is more like magenta. Ask any man here (that’s not a fashion designer or hairdresser) the difference between ‘purper’ and ‘paars’ and you’ll get utter astonishment.
So here’s a reference chart of purples:
- #5A004A: Tokyo Purple
- #660099: Vulgar Purple (paars)
- #800080: (Royal) Purple (purper)
- #8A2BE2: Blue violet
- #8B008B: Dark magenta
- #9370DB: Medium purple
- #9400D3: Dark violet
- #990066: Aubergine / Eggplant
- #9932CC: Dark orchid
- #A020F0: Purple (X11 color)
- #B12166: Pansy purple
- #BA55D3: Medium orchid
- #BF00FF: Electric purple
- #C71585: Medium violet red
- #DA70D6: Orchid (Orchidee)
- #DB7093: Pale violet red
- #DD00FF: Psychedelic Purple
- #E0B0FF: Mauve
- #E6E6FA: Lavender (Lavendel)
- #EE82EE: Violet
- #FF00FF: Fuchsia
If any woman/color-sensitive man would like to point out more variations of purple-ish colours, be my guest!
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You should hear Beerschot and Anderlecht supporters argue about the difference between their shades of purple.
Clopin : mega-comment!
Ha! At work we had discussions about shades of grey, red and blue…
Grey/red/blue …
Are those the colours of some football club too?
I, as a guy, maintain that men (excepting fashion/interior designers, etc.) perceive only 10 colors:
red, green, blue, orange, yellow, purple, pink, brown, black, and white.
Guys, think about it: would you ever point to an object and say it is any color other than one of those?
Notes: “gray” is a subset of black or white, and pink must be differentiated from red because it cannot otherwise be defined as “girly” without condemning red as well.