[Ann Drysdale]

And I, Michael, would remain at large barely long enough to visit you with a packet of biscuits.

Nonetheless, I have to ask, what is the Welsh word for sea-coloured of which you others speak?

[John Isbell]

Those others are just me to this point. I have an academic friend who speaks fluent Welsh, and I'm not sure I've ever asked him his take on this claim. The word would probably be glas. Here's a thread from The Guardian:

"The Celtic spectrum was different to the one the Western world is now used to, and based on the quality of a hue rather than its wavelength. So "llwyd" can mean brown (paper), blue (mould) or grey (rabbit); "glas" can mean blue (sky), green (grass), grey (horse) or transparent (saliva); "coch" can mean brown (sugar) or red (meat) and so on. There are learned papers on this "spectrum overlap", which is present in the traditions of Scotland and Ireland also."

Garry, Llangwyllog Wales

And here's Wikipedia:

"The Welsh word glas is usually translated as "blue"; however, it can also refer, variously, to the color of the sea, of grass, or of silver. [...] In traditional Welsh (and related languages), glas could refer to certain shades of green and grey as well as blue [...] however, modern Welsh is tending toward the 11-color Western scheme, restricting glas to blue and using gwyrdd for green, llwyd for grey and brown for brown."

All this to say, ask and it shall be given. I *am* in academia; but I have to say, the fact that a single Indo-European root gave us basic words for both white (blanc) and black seems worth discovering to me. It's a good reason to have academics, and I have no regrets about posting it here.

Cheers,
John

[Ann Drysdale]

Oh, glas. You should have said. I know glas well - a glorious Humpty-Dumptian mystery: blue/green/grey... and what's that if not sea-coloured, governed by clouds and sun? I was looking for something with a b in it to fit in with the rest of your conversation.

I'm glad it wasn't, because words beginning with b are inclined to mutate into other mothering feginnings, or even themselves fasquerade as mhroblematic p's.

[John Isbell]

Hi Anne,

I once tried to learn Irish and gave up in despair, and I think Welsh is similarly difficult.

Cheers,
John

[Ann Drysdale]

Yup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvScUgHcA8Y

[Allen Tice]

The problem is worst in areas where different schools of theory and gendering see different arrangements of the obvious canals on Mars. There's the Baltic Martini Transport school of thought, or the BMT people; the Interplanetary Navel Dust group, or the IND; and inevitably the Italic Roman Transport cabal, or the IRT. These and others brainwash their young recruits with cobwebs of mutually contradictory constellations of circular arguments that are guarded by fiercely tenured Bourbons who ... I could go on. The sciences are much cooler.

[John Isbell]

There is less hot air.

Cheers,
John

[David Anthony]

Originally Posted by Ann Drysdale

Yup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvScUgHcA8Y

That's delightful, Annie.

[John Isbell]

Yes, a sad tale. Or mhale. Or gale, I guess.

John