Hue and Cry

Defining words is hard, no matter what they are, but the difficulty only doubles when the word in question is a purely visual referent like color. How do you define blue ? Or red, or green, or—God forbid—pink? Well, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary has this to say about teal duck , sense two, which transcends its origin as waterfowl: “a dark greenish blue that is bluer and duller than average teal, averaging teal blue, drake, or duckling.” Elegant. Fun, even, for a dictionary, whose defining characteristic is kind of to be dull as dust—which raises the question of how and why some of these colorful definitions came to be. That’s the subject of lexicographer Kory Stamper’s new book, True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color–from Azure to Zinc Pink, which takes her from the pink and buff archives of Merriam-Webster’s offices to the warring color standards of the early 20th century, from the glossy pages of the Sears & Roebuck catalog to the trenches of World War I. Go beyond the episode: Kory Stamper’s True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color–from Azure to Zinc Pink Read Scholar executive editor Bruce Falconer’s essay, “ What Is the Perfect Color Worth? ” on the inscrutable world of color forecasting Tune in every (other) week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

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Hue and Cry is an episode from Smarty Pants by Stephanie Bastek.

This episode is 36:44 long.

This episode was published on Apr 3, 2026.

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