1. COLOUR LANGUAGE
The language we use to describe colour affects our ability to represent it accurately. Take the robin redbreast [above] as an example. On many Christmas cards, the demonstrably orange-breasted bird is depicted with an eponymous red bib and most children would reach for a red felt-tip if they came across one in a colouring book.
This imaginative distortion of the robin’s colouring no doubt happened because the nickname “redbreast” was given to the bird prior to the word “orange” even entering the English language.
The word “orange” initially appeared in reference to the fruit, only
