On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 7:36 PM, Herman Miller <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On 4/28/2011 10:30 AM, Adam Walker wrote:
>>
>> I wonder how many/which different semantic fields tend to attract these
>> specialized color terms (like blond not yellow for hair/ ryzhyj not
>> krasnyj
>> for hair/ tinto not rojo for wine.
>>
>> Hair seems to be a big attractor for specialized color terms and/or odd
>> applications of color terms.
>>
>> Wine has at least one language that gives it a special color term.
>>
>> English also uses blond for yellow/pale woods.  So there's one token for
>> woods getting special color treatment.
>>
>> Chip in with others!
>
> Bird names have many specialized color usages. On the one hand, you have
> names that don't match the color of the bird, like the great blue heron,
> which is really more of a grayish color, or the green heron, which hardly
> looks green at all. The purple finch is reddish. On the other hand, there's
> a whole set of specialized names for various shades of brownish colors: e.g.
> chestnut, cinnamon, rufous, or shades of blue: azure, cerulean.
>
> As for mammals, the white and black rhinoceros are both gray. Mammals
> described as "red", like the red squirrel or red fox, are more orange-brown
> than red.

Grey cats are also referred to as "blue".

> There's green and black tea, which probably has more to do with the color of
> the leaves than the color of the tea. In Minza green tea is described as
> "kirvi" (yellow).

The color of tea does refer to the leaves.