"Red Hair" is clearly Orange

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Orange hair is clearly tangerine.

Do oriental people actually have "yellow skin"? lol

Yes, in comparison to us pinkskins

Seeing this post next to your avatar reminds me of the Andorians from Star Trek, and their slur for humans... especially because, in an episode of Enterprise they actually referred to humans as 'pinkskins' while Travis Mayweather was at the helm.
I have no idea whether Andorians said 'pinkskins' in the original Star Trek.

I was very confused for a long time when people were referred to as having "olive" colored skin.

I am a so-called "red-head" but my hair is neither red nor orange. More coppery, in my opinion. "Red" hair comes in a lot of different shades, none of which is really red. If it was, we would look pretty ridiculous.

Socalled redheads usually have orange hair. Some do have a redder nuance though, but they are the minority.


Auburn suggests a browner shade to it than the orange one.

There are several shades of "red" hair.



What is olive skin? It sounds greenish! That term has confused me since I first heard it.


Some do, while others are more like golden beige and a few even have brown skin.
You know how some people have eyes or hair that seem to change color? I once knew a Korean born woman whose skin in some light would look light brown, in other light it looked yellow. It must have been the light, because she always wore the same jacket.

I agree the typical "red head" has orange to brick red hair. Although some people's hair can be quite red. Why are they also called "ginger"? Ginger is pale yellow, not red or orange.

It can have yellow undertones. Not even caucasian people have the same undertone in their skin, it can vary wildly from yellow, to olive, to pink and peach and orange. It all depends on their genetic heritage.

I agree wholeheartedly. "Red" hair is clearly not red at all. I can understand and forgive calling it red because it sounds better, but I hate it people tell me with a straight face and serious tone that the color of "red" hair and the color of a strawberry are indistinguishable. In fact, I made a thread with the same subject about two years ago.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt147252.html

A few facts:

The word 'orange' did not appear in the English language until after the term 'red heads'. Oranges were brought over in the mid 1500s, but the outsides were mostly green, whilke some turned orange due to when they were picked, and when they were brought out of their natural growing area.

Crystalised/preserved ginger is very orange.

The Sun can cast yellow light - compare it to ice-white LEDs and you will see that (especially the Winter-) Sun is yellow

It's because it is an old term, and originates in a time when the word "red" (or its ancestor/cognate) had a wider meaning.

You need to remember that the colour spectrum does not have natural divisions. The ranges which get special words are basically arbitrary. So as a language slowly changes over time, the ranges specified by colour words can also slowly change. In particular, if you get new colour words (like "orange"), the older ones (like "red") would get smaller ranges since they don't need to do as much work. But common terms like "red-headed" will stick around and don't get updated.

It's funny, because sometimes people make a distinction between "black" and "brown" people, and they mean the distinction between "brown-skinned African" and "brown-skinned non-African". I've also heard people refer to Africans with very dark skin as "black black".

This situation makes much more sense if you accept that "black" has a secondary meaning of "native African". But then, could you refer to an African albino as a "pink-skinned black man"? Now my head hurts...

Mine too

But while we're at it, we shouldn't be called white either. My skin isn't white. It does not have the color of paper or egg shells. So why am I called white?



As Mister Spock has already pointed out, the sun is definitely yellowish. The sea can look blue depending on where you are and the light, and what's in the water and the sea floor. Green too.
Tan isn't really 'white' at all, it's a shade darker.
And white is not white at all. My skin color doesn't exist!