The Nature Trail
“– Rhubarb leaves make a light-green-colored dye.
– Saffron makes the brightest of golds.
– Dandelion greens make magenta.”
—Amy Sedaris, some delightful color trivia from I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, 2006.
The candy-striped pole
“The candy-striped pole, which indicates nobility proud and ancient along the palace-bordered canals of Venice, indicated merely the humble barber shop along the main street of Dawson’s Landing.”
—Mark Twain (1835-1910), Pudd’nhead Wilson.
gray-green
“If anybody had noticed Tom’s face at that time, the gray-green color of it might have provoked curiosity; but nobody did.”
—Mark Twain (1835-1910), Pudd’nhead Wilson.
quite white
“The second convict was short and plump. Almost hairless, he was quite white. He looked like something exposed to light by turning over rotting logs or planks. . . .”
—William Faulkner, Old Man, 1939.
black staccato slashes of ink
“. . . presently it was May and the warden’s newspaper began to talk in headlines two inches tall—those black staccato slashes of ink which, it would almost seem, even the illiterate should be able to read: . . . ”
—William Faulkner, Old Man, 1939.
jarns, nittles, grawlix and quimp.
Various squiggles used to denote cussing in comic books.
‘33 Names of Things You Never Knew had Names.
octothorpe.
The symbol “#” on a telephone handset. Bell Labs’ engineer Don Macpherson created the word in the 1960s by combining octo-, as in eight, with the name of one of his favourite athletes, 1912 Olympic decathlon champion Jim Thorpe.
‘33 Names of Things You Never Knew had Names.
phosphenes.
The lights you see when you close your eyes hard. Technically the luminous impressions are due to the excitation of the retina caused by pressure on the eyeball.
‘33 Names of Things You Never Knew had Names.
one jewel
“The sky was a miracle of purity, a miracle of azure. The sea was polished, was blue, was pellucid, was sparkling like a precious stone, extending on all sides, all round to the horizon—as if the whole terrestrial globe had been one jewel, one colossal sapphire, a single gem fashioned into a planet.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Youth.
angry clouds and an infuriated sea
“The sea was white like a sheet of foam, like a caldron of boiling milk; there was not a break in the clouds, no—not the size of a man’s hand—no, not for so much as ten seconds. There was for us no sky, there were for us no stars, no sun, no universe—nothing but angry clouds and an infuriated sea.”
–Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Youth.