Red-tape is a euphemism for unsolvable complexities. I almost agreed.

Some thoughts about the sky being blue.

Magenta has a much more interesting etymology than I had previously written.

An exploration of the modern metaphor.

Modern milk is a 20th century invention and most ethnicities are lactose intolerant.

Distinguishing between hype and functionality.

An etymology of many things golden.

Scheherazade, Alice, Dorothy, and Wendy.

This newsletter includes an intro to computer science, a quick explainer in vinification (winemaking), swine-ish sailors, biblical leprosy, the Passover Seder, bright-eyed goddesses, tithing, and raisin wine.

Please don't buy paint colors for your home simply because they were popular during the 18th and 19th centuries.

The Oxford English Dictionary has dozens and dozens of definitions of shade. I try to understand a few of them.

Spoiler: This isn't just about the color of ballet shoes

Warning: Art is not edible.

While the simple question “what is your favorite color?” seems rather straightforward, three out of the five words are anything but. And here are roughly 5600 words to prove it.

As I mentioned in my initial newsletter, I tend to go down a lot of random “rabbit holes” during my research. It seemed fitting, then, that I began this time with a theory I had about orange carrots.

In under a half century, the humble banana went from being an exotic fruit to an eponymous color. At its peak, the fervor for this fruit could only be compared to that of the Dutch Tulip Mania of the 1630s, albeit in a very different way.

As a general rule of thumb, color is always mistranslated in the Bible. It’s not as much that they didn’t have the same colors that we do, it’s more that our concept of color is muddled.

The etymology of the word blue includes everything from brothels to mermen to monsters with twelve feet and six heads to the effects of magic herbs, but not necessarily in that order.

If I’ve had a conversation with you over the past two months in person, I’ve probably randomly started talking about the history of using the word “bleu” in French as a profanity...