Color is one of the most foundational experiences we have as humans–yet clear communication about color eludes most of us. Never mind the arguments of whether aqua is a blue or a green (or neither): what do you do with colors like “lake,” which can be both a blue and a red, or “puce,” which is not the color that most people think it is? How do you describe the difference between lime green and Kelly green, or Kelly green and grass green, or this paint company’s “Kelly green” and that paint company’s “Kelly green”? This conundrum is one scientists, linguists, philosophers, and manufacturers have agonized over for hundreds of years. It seemed a hopeless case. But one small group of scientists, led by one man obsessed with color descriptions, decided to fix it once and for all with the help of the biggest dictionary company in America – and, in doing so, teach English speakers how to navigate the technicolor world around them. Join author and lexicographer Kory Stamper on a wild romp through the modern history of the attempt to define color.
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Kory Stamper is an author and a lexicographer who has written dictionaries for nearly thirty years at Merriam-Webster, Cambridge Dictionaries, and Dictionary.com, and has thought deeply (perhaps too deeply) about how to define the words that define us. Her first book, "Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries," received critical acclaim and was an Amazon Best Book of 2017. Her writing on language and lexicography has appeared in The Guardian, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and New York Magazine, among others. She travels around the country giving talks and presentations on things that only other word nerds would be interested in, and she blogs regularly on language, lexicography, and the weirdness of both at www.korystamper.com.