The Language of Color

Whether it’s the black of Black Friday, the white of the driven snow, or even the holiday blues, colors are deeply embedded in the rituals of life. But how have color terms come to be used for so much beyond the hue they describe?

The history behind the colors

Many of the English expressions which include color words have fascinating histories.

For instance, while it might seem logical that “Black Friday” refers to stores making it “into the black,” as in turning a profit from a day of big sales, the origin of the term has more to do with traffic.

Its rumored start came in the 1960s when the surge of post-Thanksgiving work absenteeism and traffic congestion caused by a swell of Christmas shopping sparked police in Philadelphia to refer to it as “Black Friday.”

The use of the word “black” with a day of the week had, as far back as the 16th century, been used to denote a particularly disastrous or ruinous day (often in a financial sense). Only in later decades, do we find references alluding to the term as marking the day as one when businesses “make it into the black” financially.

Source: NejronPhoto_Shutterstock

The color of class

The term “white collar,” referring to doing professional office work rather than manual labor, also comes from a fascinating history—one highlighting cleanliness. In Europe and early America, the soil that stained popular white undergarments and collars was believed to result from dirt being drawn from the body.

Over time, the whiteness of such garments became a marker of status and wealth. The term “white collar” came from the difficulty of keeping white clothing clean when working manual or dirty jobs, thus resulting in a distinction between those with white collars and those without.

Blue collar, used to refer to those in manual labor positions, comes from the blue color of the overalls or the blue shirts commonly worn by those in such occupations.

The color of emotions

In many languages, color words are often strongly linked with emotions. Consider how English speakers frequently use colors to talk about negative affective states: feeling blue, in a black mood, seeing red.

Again, the colors of our emotions aren’t arbitrary but tied to cultural beliefs and histories of use. For instance, the association of the color blue with sadness dates back to at least the 1600s, when demons, known as "blue devils," were thought to cause feelings of melancholy and sadness.

The color red often occurs in expressions of anger, as in “seeing red,” likely a result of the association of anger with a sense of heat, i.e., red-hot, or being (heatedly) red-faced. Unlike some of the other emotion/color linkages which are culture-specific, this anger/red connection is common across cultures.

Interestingly, in English, research suggests that darker colors, particularly red and black, are most often associated with negative emotions or emotion-loaded words. In contrast, brighter colors like yellow and white are more often associated with positive emotion words.

Why would this be?

In part, the association of negative emotions with darker colors stems from the psychological connections people have developed between the idea of darkness and that of death or danger. Dating back to ancient times, black has been linked to the darkness envisioned in death and the afterlife, though in this way black was also associated with rebirth.

Black cats believed to bring bad luck

Source: Aleksandr Gusev/Pixabay

However, in Christian traditions, blackness became a color representative not just of death but also of evil and spiritual danger, as is evident in expressions such as “the blackness of one’s soul.”

Brightness, in contrast, is viewed as positive, clear, and light. The association of “white” with the positive goes beyond an association with brightness, it also stems from the cultural belief that white is a sign of cleanliness and purity, just as with the white collars discussed earlier.

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Certain colors are also viewed as endemic to particular objects or entities in the natural world. For instance, red is the color of blood and fire, green is the color of trees and grass (nature), and blue is the color of water. The way these objects are viewed culturally – as dangerous, healthy, or calming – then also becomes part of the sense speakers associate with the names for that color.

A world of color

In the natural world, color information is identified early and quickly by human visual processing, suggesting that it serves some sort of role such as allowing object segmentation or recognition.

Given the importance of color as such an attentional signal, it is not surprising that, over time, certain colors become associated with specific meanings and emotions, like red (i.e., the color of blood) for danger or alarm, spawning its further use in expressions like “red flag” or “red skies,” which encode a sense of alarm.

Similarly, a blue pallor signaling a lack of oxygen or associated with unoxidized blood drives a cultural association between the color blue and a lack of vitality and health, giving rise to expressions like “having the blues” or being “black and blue” to express the sense of feeling beaten up.

Far beyond the rainbow

Color terms may begin as simple descriptions of the world around us, but over time, they become threads that tie together our emotions, histories, and cultural identities in ways that go far beyond whatever hue meets the eye.