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Humor
A Paint Chip By Any Other Name
I think I’ve found my porpoise.
Every morning I wake up and think, “Somewhere there’s a person whose job is to name paint colors.”
How do I get that job? What’s the pay like? Do you get locked in a small room with nothing but a dictionary, or do you get to walk around outside to experience all those robins’ eggs and daffodils and melons?
Naming paint colors is my dream job. I can spend a happy hour in front of the paint chip display at Home Depot. The names transport me — Terra Cotta, Begonia, Sunrise. Seawashed Glass, Baroness, Hep Green.
Hep Green?
Hep Green is Sherwin-Williams chip number 6704, and it’s about as hideous as you’d imagine. Think cafeteria pea soup. Now imagine an entire room that color.
I want to ask someone: hep as in “hepcat” (antiquated but acceptable)? Or hep as in “hepatitis”?
A lot of paint colors have seemingly been named by people who have been exposed to an unhealthy amount of paint during their lives.
Take, for example, smaragdine, Pantone’s 2013 Color of the Year. I thought that was the name of the dragon in The Hobbit. But no, apparently “smaragdine” is a real word and it means “of or relating to emeralds.”
