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Green & Blue

Cherrybomb

Cherrybomb

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Aug 26, 2009
Messages
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Sitting on the roof, at dusk.
I was told as a kid that you never wear green & blue together. My mum had 2 different sayings on this topic: Green & blue will never do, and Blue & green should never be seen. Why? She claims it's bad luck :roll: Anyone else heard of this?
 
But why? I know they don't look great together, but then neither do red and purple...
 
I think the idea is that any two colours that are close on the spectrum don't compliment each other: contrast is more pleasing to the eye/mind in many situations. As to why that is, you'll have to consult a psychologist or someone similar.

ROYGBIV - and all the shades between.

Start here:
many color theorists have devised formulae, principles or guidelines for color combination with the aim being to predict or specify positive aesthetic response or "color harmony". Color wheel models have often been used as a basis for color combination principles or guidelines and for defining relationships between colors. Some theorists and artists believe juxtapositions of complementary color will produce strong contrast, a sense of visual tension as well as "color harmony"; while others believe juxtapositions of analogous colors will elicit positive aesthetic response. Color combination guidelines suggest that colors next to each other on the color wheel model (analogous colors) tend to produce a single-hued or monochromatic color experience and some theorists also refer to these as "simple harmonies". In addition, split complementary color schemes usually depict a range of analogous hues plus a key complementary color. A triadic color scheme adopts any three colors approximately equidistant around a color wheel model.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory
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My grandmother - a very superstitious Yorkshirewoman - would not wear green at all, considering it the colour of death!

We might tend to think of it as good: the colour of Nature, healthy foods and ecologically sound practices but earlier generations, who probably saw a lot more of it, associated it with the Devil, witchcraft, sickness and jealousy. :shock:
 
I wear green and blue a lot - sometimes together.
 
Good for you, Myth; I like blue and green together; very soothing.

My paternal grandmother would never wear green as it was "the fairy's colour" and no babies in the family were ever put in green as the fairies would steal them.

I remember when I wanted some green material for a duvet cover, in the late 70s, the market stall we bought all our fabric from in those days had to get it in specially from their Devon store, as green didn't sell in Cornwall!
 
My mate says 'Blue and green should ne'er be seen, except upon a fairy queen!' :lol:
 
Some sailors consider that green is an unlucky colour to paint a ship. But when I worked for the Island Cruising Club in Salcombe we had several dark green vessels, including Hoshi and Provident, and very smart they looked too.

Back in the 19 th century, one of the fastest and most famous tea clippers was the Thermopylae, a fierce rival of the Cutty Sark, and Thermopylae was painted green too.

http://www.red-rooster.co.uk/ships/thermop.htm
 
The relationship between colour and language is discussed here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Episode_1/

Fry's English Delight - Series 5 - Episode 1

How we see colour and then describe it can shed light on the way language works. Stephen Fry talks to David Hockney and uses Homer's verse and a bilingual Italian to show how.

David Hockney rightly observes to Stephen Fry that it feels odd to be making a programme about colour on the radio. In a way, that's the point. Colour is subjective and emotive. The very phrase "colourful language" is a metaphor for vividness. But, until quite recently, we've been confused about how colour language developed. A discovery by statesman William Gladstone, who was also a Homer expert, led to a staggeringly wrongheaded theory. Gladstone helped show that most ancient cultures didn't have a word for blue. As a result, it was concluded that the ancients had under-developed colour vision. The reality was that they had under-developed vocabularies.

We meet a man who sees no colour but hears it electronically and can "name" colours with audio signals. We also hear from the head of colour marketing at Dulux paints whose job it is to find new words for new colours. And a bilingual woman says she might think differently about colour depending on which language she's using. The conclusion - how we see colour and how we describe it can shed light onto how language works.
 
Now I grew up with the phrase 'RED and green should never be seen, only on an Irish Queen'.

Green is obviously being victimised by the other primaries. ;)
 
rynner2 said:
Some sailors consider that green is an unlucky colour to paint a ship. ...
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Green has long been considered a bad luck color in American automobile racing as well.

The cars involved in the two most famous deadly crashes in early auto racing (Lee Oldfield's 1911 crash that killed 11 spectators; Gaston Chevrolet's 1920 crash that killed him and two other racers) were green. A superstitious prohibition against green color for cars and clothing persisted in NASCAR up to the 1970's / 1980's.
 
Today I have been wearing a blue T-shirt and a green zip-up top. It looks like rubbish, but then I was never 'a dedicated follower of fashion'!

(I mostly wear whatever comes off the top of the clean laundry pile!)


Green has long been considered a bad luck color in American automobile racing as well.
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And yet British Racing Green was a mark of pride for many years, before sponsors' colours took over motor racing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_racing_green
 
Green seems to have been the focus of more than its fair share of clothing superstitions ...

- There's a long standing superstition against actors wearing green on stage - apparently originating because Molière collapsed during a performance and died hours later while wearing green.

- There's an old superstition that anyone wearing green will soon change into black - related to a belief that wearing green results in or causes unexpected death (for someone other than the person wearing green).

- Green has long been claimed to be one of the unluckiest colors for a bride to wear, and some traditions claim it's unlucky for green to appear elsewhere in a wedding (in others' apparel or objects). There's an old rhyme claiming, "Married in Green, ashamed to be seen." This may relate to the use of the phrase 'green gown' to connote a promiscuous woman (green being associated with grass stains from frolicking afield).

- On a less superstitious note ... Back when I paid any attention to sartorial minutiae (some 40+ years ago ...) green had a reputation for being the most difficult color to wear. I originally heard this in relation to coordinating with the colors of other clothing. Later, I heard the same thing in relation to coordinating with the wearer's skin tone and hair color.
 
When I was a kid it was "Blue and green should never be seen, except with yellow in between". Sounds ghastly to me.
 
marionXXX said:
When I was a kid it was "Blue and green should never be seen, except with yellow in between". Sounds ghastly to me.
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When I were a lad it was
"Blue and green should never be seen, unless theres something in between".
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EnolaGaia said:
Green seems to have been the focus of more than its fair share of clothing superstitions ...

- There's a long standing superstition against actors wearing green on stage - apparently originating because Molière collapsed during a performance and died hours later while wearing green.
Click to expand...

Must play havoc with those Robin Hood pantos. Actually, one of the most notorious theatrical flops ever was Twang, a 1960s musical about Robin.
 
I though green was the colour prostitutes used to wear - that's why women shouldn't wear it. That's what the tune "Greensleeves" is about...
 
We do have to ask what kind of woman would be out at that time of night disporting herself in green sleeves? Take her down!

Next case: "There suck I, In a cowslips bell . . ." guilty as charged!

"Those are pearls that were his eyes," disgraceful and his own father, too, lock him up! :?
 
Hmm! I don’t like to wear green or blue: as I see it, there’s quite enough of those colours already occurring naturally (sky, greenery) without me adding any more of them.
 
Surely green is traditionally regarded as unlucky as it is the fairies colour?
 
My first year art teacher used to frequently say "red and blue will not do, red and green should not be seen". He had nothing to say on the subject of blue and green but once marked me down severely for using pink and purple together.
I learned from him, through his sheer ineptitude and lack of talent, that all these rules are made to be broken.
 
Green does have an association with death in many cultures. It was/is the colour of Osiris when he is reassembled by Isis after being murdered by his brother as well as in the examples above.

Theatre wise, from a pantomime costume perspective green can be tricky as it tends to blend in with the inevitable woodland/bosky scenery of amateur dramatic pantos. This makes the lighting tricky. ( Light pinks are a bit of a bugger too in that respect)

I noticed in our local yarn shops that there are less green wools available for baby clothes than any other colour so maybe the superstition still lingers about dressing infants in green.
 
Goalkeepers for my hometown football team (Grimsby, which for those of you who aren't familiar with it was once the busiest fishing port in Europe) never wear green; it's considered unlucky as fishermen/sailors unlucky enough to fall into the sea whilst wearing green would be hard to see against the sea.
 
Tench said:
Goalkeepers for my hometown football team (Grimsby, which for those of you who aren't familiar with it was once the busiest fishing port in Europe) never wear green; it's considered unlucky as fishermen/sailors unlucky enough to fall into the sea whilst wearing green would be hard to see against the sea.
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Same thing applies in North Norfolk, it's considered unlucky to paint a boat green so none of the boats here are and also for the same common sense reasons you've stated: it's unpractical seeing as the sea is green coloured in appearance so that would makes things harder for rescue purposes.
 
I think it depends on what shade of blue and green, it can look stunning together, like a royal blue and a turquoise, but I remember blue and green must not be seen unless there is a line in between,
 
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