So, I’ve got a condition called dyschromatopsia – in other words, color blindness. I’ve got red-green problems, and I’m not sure if it’s protanomaly or deuteranopia, but it makes distinguishing color very difficult. The worst for me is trying to see the difference between some greens and browns – they look the same to me. For most of my life, I’ve tried getting by with just faking it – trying to not explicitly name colors, or just guess. For most of my life, I’ve had to argue with people about color.

Not to drag that old dead horse back out – I’ll say it once again: Chartreuse is not a color.

This morning, I was linked to a handy little web application that has 1,500 color names and an approximate representation of each. As I was looking through the list of names, I was thinking “these can’t be real colors”. And then I saw chartreuse again. The app helpfully tells me that this is chartreuse. What’s the big deal? Why is this so important, that this shade of green have it’s own special name? It’s not a real color! However, I kept looking at the list of names. 1,500 of them, actually. After spending some time, I’m sure they are made up. They are fake colors. They have to be. For example:

• #9B4703 – Oregon
• #9678B6 – Purple Mountain’s Majesty
• #290C5E – Violent Violet
• #E4D69B – Zombie

I guess I’m just not “with it” when it comes to colors. These must have made sense to someone, sometime – but to me, they seem just as fake.