Up Next
Back to Show
Otherwords
How the Colors Got Their Names
Season 3
Episode 9
In some ways, colors are the ultimate example of language's power. The earliest humans didn't have words for colors. They had words for objects and actions, and it took tens of thousands of years for those words to evolve into the names of the colors we use today. In this episode, we’ll answer that age-old question, which came first: orange the fruit or orange the color?
Support Provided By
6:38
What are "argots" or what some call "verbal jazz", and how is it used across the globe?
6:35
How did English become the most widely spoken language in the world?
6:41
R is an incredibly weird letter; it's a wonder that we use one symbol to represent them.
8:01
What makes a word slang, and why does it sound so weird when companies use it?
12:13
We take a deeper look as to why sign language was banned for decades.
8:57
Besides being annoying, what if the grammar police are actually... wrong?
7:46
It shouldn't matter what a food is called as long as it tastes good, right? Well...
9:41
Current studies with children show show new insight into bilingualism.
7:00
English has more words than most other languages, but there are still gaps.