Green or Gray?

Beth of the Cassandra Pages is an old friend (my wife and I visited her in Montreal in 2004: 1, 2) and it’s always a pleasure to hear from her; she’s sent me a link to You see grēne where I see grœg from a Scottish knitting blog written by Kate Davies, whom Beth calls “a very smart designer,” and while it’s mostly about colors themselves, there’s enough linguistic material I thought I’d bring it here. Your responses to yesterday’s piece – in which I introduced KC’s fabulous Chingly Yorlin – really interested me. In both the Ravelry group and newsletter comments, many of you suggested that you do not see Chingly as I do – as a greenish-grey – but as very definitely green. […] Whether we see / name a colour as “green” or “grey” can depend on many factors: the physical mechanics of perception, our cultural heritage, our linguistic positioning, and (it is now increasingly clear) our age. […] As grey is one of those shades which, for many of us it seems, perpetually hovers in an area of…