True Color

The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color--from Azure to Zinc Pink

By: Kory Stamper

Narrated by: Kory Stamper

A kaleidoscopic journey through the secret history of hues—and the story of the obsessive genius behind the definitions of colors we use today, from the beloved author of Word by Word

begonia (n.): 3 -s : a deep pink that is bluer, lighter, and stronger than average coral (see coral 3b), bluer than fiesta, and bluer and stronger than sweet william — called also gaiety

What could "bluer than fiesta" possibly mean? While editing dictionaries for Merriam-Webster, Kory Stamper found herself drawn again and again to the whimsical color definitions in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary—especially when compared to the dry and impersonal entries that filled the rest of the volume. Stamper couldn’t help but wonder: Who was the voice behind these peculiar definitions?

Meet I. H. Godlove, an erratic but brilliant up-and-coming scientist who was one of the experts Merriam-Webster hired in 1930 to help revise the dictionary to reflect a rapidly modernizing world. His fascinating life mirrors the wild and winding journey that color science, color psychology, and color production took through the twentieth century. Stamper tracks these industries as they move into the atomic age and intertwine in strange and surprising ways, spanning two world wars and involving chemical explosions, an unexpected suicide, dramatic office politics, and an extraordinary love story.

Filled with captivating facts about color words and colors themselves—did you know that the word “puke” used to refer to a fashionable shade of reddish-brown before it was associated with vomit?—and fueled by Stamper’s inexhaustible curiosity, True Color will transform the way you see the world, from black-and-white to Technicolor.

*Includes a downloadable PDF of images from the book

I loved the video dea of all these austere nerds fighting over shades of pink and blue.

I loved the whole thing, but wonder why the author didn't weigh in on photons.

Defining color and the world behind the Third

Stamper takes you through the personalities and issues surrounding the creation of Webster's Third, plus the intricacies of color and defining color in ways that are useful across scientific fields, in manufacturing, in clothing including military uniforms and a myriad of other uses. You feel the stress of the lexicographers as an impossible pace is demanded to produce Webster's Third, the difficulties of the scientists trying to define color and the added stress due to totally different conceptions of deadlines between the two groups. I had both the Audible and the Kindle versions. If you read and listen there is more on the Audible than in the Kindle. It is all there, but she reads the footnotes in the text as she goes, so either you have to scroll to the footnote and then back or just wait until the Kindle is in the right spot. Took getting used to, but it works. A fun read if you are a word nerd.

interesting, with history and research

I loved that the author read the book, it added emphasis and clarity to a subject that interests me.