114: Begonia, average coral, and sea pink - Defining colour terms with Kory Stamper

begonia: a deep pink that is bluer, lighter, and stronger than average coral (see ‘coral’ 3B), bluer than fiesta, and bluer and stronger than sweet William, called also ‘gaiety’. In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about trying to pin down definitions for colour terms with Kory Stamper, author of the new book TRUE COLOR! Kory is a lexicographer and was Associate Editor at Merriam-Webster for almost two decades. Her first book was Word By Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, which we also loved, and now Kory is back with the fruits of her dive into the mid-20th century quest to standardize colour terms, taking us from dying fabrics to painting cars to assessing grades of maple syrup. Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: Read the transcript here: Announcements: In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about childlore! We talk about our favourite bits of childlore from our own childhoods, such as skipping/clapping rhymes, counting-off rhymes, and fortune-telling. We also talk about tracking down the sources for "All Right, Vegemite!", a compilation of Australian children's chants and rhymes from Lauren's childhood, selectively choosing to pass on less racist and sexist versions of the rhymes, the relationship between childlore and memes, as well as research from folklorists and anthropologists on childlore around the world. Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds: For links to things mentioned in this episode:

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114: Begonia, average coral, and sea pink - Defining colour terms with Kory Stamper is an episode from Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics by Lingthusiasm.

This episode is 00:54:15 long.

This episode was published on Mar 20, 2026.

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