\n<\/aside>\nIt turns out that the delightfully daffy definitions were the product of one eccentric scientist and his brilliant, enterprising wife, hired at a time when the United States \u2014 and the world in general \u2014 was beginning to get serious about chroma.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything we currently know about color,\u201d Stamper states, \u201ccould plausibly be traced back to one point in modern history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the Great War, the US relied largely on Germany \u2014 the birthplace of modern chemistry \u2014 for its synthetic dyes. When the Americans joined the war effort in 1917, however, they realized that they needed to not only ramp up their dye production, but also create some standards.<\/p>\nAuthor Kory Stamper was inspired to investigate after reading the ridiculous descriptions for the color \u201cbegonia\u201d in the dictionary. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cColor, it turns out, was tactical,\u201d writes Stamper. \u201cThousands and thousands of yards of camouflage covers needed to be dyed a consistent color: Make one batch just a smidge too green, for instance, and that camo cover no longer blends in with the mud of the Somme.\u201d<\/p>\n
To complicate matters, everyone seemed to have a different definition of, say, \u201ckhaki\u201d or \u201colive green.\u201d Even within the military, color swatches for different fabrics from different branches of armed forces did not match.<\/p>\n
And so the government went to the National Bureau of Standards, created in 1901 as the first national physical sciences research labs. They gave them a new mandate: create some color standards. Scientists were conscripted to study color, and they found myriad ways to take advantage of their expertise.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They worked for photography labs and fashion companies. They launched color consultancies and forecasting firms. They created color guides for textile manufacturers and graphic designers. They wrote books on color matching, color theory and color psychology.\u00a0<\/p>\nI.H. Godlove and his wife, Margaret Godlove, worked on the names and descriptions of color for the Third. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThis color boom was just beginning when Merriam-Webster decided to update its New International Dictionary in the 1920s \u2014 and include colors. <\/p>\n
Merriam-Webster hired outside consultants to provide vocabulary and definitions for its new scientific terms, and color was no exception. However, it proved the trickiest.<\/p>\n
There are four main types of color names, Stamper explains: basic colors (your colors of the rainbow, plus black and white and maybe pink); intrinsic colors, which are based on something in real life (like lime, daffodil or cardinal); associative color names, which are tied to a person or place (\u201cAlice blue,\u201d \u201cPrussian blue,\u201d etc.); and finally the fanciful color names that are meant to \u201cevoke a feeling,\u201d like Hush, Mute, Mystery, and Secret. These were sometimes made up by manufacturers and retailers to sell stuff. After all, why market a suit\u00a0as\u00a0drab \u201cbrown\u201d when you can call it \u201cchocolate\u201d or \u201cespresso\u201d?<\/p>\n
Two years after Webster had contracted a scientist to come up with the color terms and definitions for the new volume, it still had nothing. That\u2019s when I.H. Godlove arrived.<\/p>\nColor science came about in part because of the need to standardize colors for military uniforms. krysek \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nGodlove was a scientist and color evangelist \u2014 he wanted to spread the gospel of color to the world. He went about his work for Webster\u2019s with uncommon zeal. And when Webster embarked on the Third, he eagerly offered his expertise once again.<\/p>\n
He and his wife Margaret \u2014 who had studied chemistry at Oberlin and co-wrote a color newsletter with Godlove \u2014 got to work. When he died in August 1954, from a ruptured appendix, Margaret continued their work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Third, finally released in 1961, two years behind schedule, was a bit of a flop. But Margaret flourished. She had a successful career as a color researcher and scientist and later became a veterinary assistant. When Stamper met her surviving step-grandchildren, they said that the whimsy in that\u00a0begonia<\/em>\u00a0write-up was all her. \u201cI never met I.H.,\u201d one of them told Stamper. \u201cBut I saw Margaret in that definition.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Godloves\u2019 work shows just how slippery color definitions are. Since the\u00a0Third came out in 1961, thousands of \u201cnew\u201d colors have been invented, or discovered. And many of the Third\u2019s colors have faded away (see: Fiesta).<\/p>\nDespite the standards, color is ultimately in the hands of the beholder \u2014 and the paint manufacturer. Sebastian Duda \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAs much as we\u2019d like to impose a color standard, humans keep interfering. Marketers and designers rechristen hues for marketing purposes, or we mislabel\u00a0them simply because the small difference between, say, razzmatazz and magenta is too nuanced for the untrained or hurried eye. <\/p>\n
Color is in the eye of the beholder: Pantone has its own version of begonia, which is different from Sherwin-Williams\u2019, which is different from Benjamin Moore\u2019s, which is different from Margaret Godloves\u2019. <\/p>\n
But Godloves\u2019 whimsical definitions feel true because they get at the way most of us think of color, not as something rigid but as something poetic, playful and vibrant.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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