> “Violet” is a type of purple or purple–blue flower. People use the color term “violet” to mean a hue between blue and purple, without specific reference to the spectrum. People get confused about this because Newton stuck the label violet on a diagram of a color wheel one time.
If violet is between blue and purple, and indigo is between blue and violet, what are we doing here?
But yeah, color is a weirdly cultural-specific thing. For instance, "orange" used to just be considered a shade of red. (Not sure whether it's an urban legend or not, but supposedly the term "orange" to refer to a color originates from the Dutch royal house of Orange.)
I'd heard previously that the fruit used to be called "a naranj", and through linguistic evolution that transformed into 'an aranj', and a light bit of google for 'a naranj' returns the following: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_(word).
>> The word ultimately derives from a Dravidian language — possibly Tamil நாரம் nāram or Telugu నారింజ nāriṃja or Malayalam നാരങ്ങ nāraŋŋa — via Sanskrit नारङ्ग nāraṅgaḥ "orange tree". From there the word entered Persian نارنگ nārang and then Arabic نارنج nāranj.[2] The initial n was lost through rebracketing in Italian and French, though some varieties of Arabic lost the n earlier.[2]
If violet is between blue and purple, and indigo is between blue and violet, what are we doing here?
But yeah, color is a weirdly cultural-specific thing. For instance, "orange" used to just be considered a shade of red. (Not sure whether it's an urban legend or not, but supposedly the term "orange" to refer to a color originates from the Dutch royal house of Orange.)