Color Terms. 15 



lustreless, appearing on a dull, sometimes velvety sur- 

 face, while again it may be more or less glossy, even to 

 the degree of appearing as if varnished. To deal with 

 these variations, however, requires simply the use of 

 suitable adjectives. For example: To indicate a color 

 which has no lustre or brightness, the adjective matt 

 (or mat) may be used, in preference to dull, which im- 

 plies reduction in purity or chroma; other adjectives, 

 appropriate in special cases, being velvety, glossy, bur- 

 nished metallic, matt-metallic, etc. 



Color Terms. — No other person has presented so 

 forcibly the urgent need for reform in popular nomen- 

 clature nor stated so clearly and concisely its short- 

 comings and the simple remedy, as Mr. Milton Bradley, 

 from one of whose educational pamphlets on the subject* 

 the following is quoted : "The list of words now em- 

 ployed to express qualities or degrees of color is very 

 small, in fact a half dozen comprise the more common 

 terms, and these are pressed into service on all occasions, 

 and in such varied relations that they not only fail to 

 express anything definite but constantly contradict 

 themselves . . . Tint, Hue and Shade are employed 

 so loosely by the public generally, even by those people 

 who claim to use English correctly, that neither word 

 has a very definite meaning, although each is capable of 

 being as accurately used as any other word in our every 

 day vocabulary' ' . . 



Certainly one would expect that men of learning, at 

 least, would employ the broader color terms correctly; 

 but some of the highest autorities on color-physics habit- 

 ually use them interchangeably, as if they were quite 

 synonymous; and even the dictionaries, with few ex- 

 ceptions, give incorrect or "hazy" definitions of these 



*Some criticisms of Popular Color Definitions and Suggestions for a better 

 Color Nomenclature. Milton Bradley Co., Springfield, Mass. (Small pamphlet of 

 15 pages). 



