There is no such thing as naturally red hair

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30 Dec 2010, 1:14 pm

There is no such as red hair. You are right in that it is brown and orange. The Weasleys have red hair. So do the Tarletons. And Ariel. When I first heard that people referred to that as 'red', I used to think there were people with hair just like Ariel's. To this day, I've never seen anyone with hair that color. Unless they dyed it or something.

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MONKEY
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30 Dec 2010, 1:48 pm

I wish my hair was ginger, it's the prettiest hair colour I think. Especially long and curly like those Pre-Raphaelite paintings.
And it's not red, it's orange or auburn depending on shade. To have proper post-box red you'd have to dye it.

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30 Dec 2010, 7:19 pm

Don't you DARE say the "r" word around me! My hair is dark orange! You hear me?! DARK FREAKING ORANGE!! !

hyperlexian
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30 Dec 2010, 7:43 pm

FluffyDog wrote:

In German, we also call that colour of hair "rot" which translates as "red" into English. I agree that "red" hair is not red in the same way as most other "red" things are, but I still use the word when I'm talking to people from other regions in Germany. When I'm talking to people from my own region, though, I prefer the term "fussig" which is from the local dialect and means the same.

I reckon the reason for this linguistic inconsistency is that "red" hair has been known in Europe for a very long time and Red was the colour that came closest to it inappeareance. The term "orange" was not known in Europe at all until about the Middle Ages, when oranges (the fruit) began to be imported from China. The word first described the fruit and only later was adopted for its colour. Thus quite a number of things were originally described as being red that we would consider orange nowwaddays.

Another example is the European Robin whose name in many European languages bears connection to the colour "Red" it displays at the throat. In German, we call these birds "Rotkehlchen", which means "little red-throat", even though their throat and breast are much closer to Orange as can be seen in this pic.

can i just say thank you for this information? wow, cool.

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31 Dec 2010, 8:05 am

Well I guess it is not technicly the actual colour red, but orange just sounds funny, well most of the times here in Australia I often hear the phrase "Red Head", and if it is not the main actual colour I hear that it has some ginger in it.

Myself personally have some in my beared and mustache, so I often say that I have ginger in my beard or that it is ginger. But some of my hair has the colour when light goes through it, so I say that I have "red highlights".

Hope I make some sense.

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31 Dec 2010, 12:07 pm

You're welcome, hyperlexian. I love to collect those odd little snippets of knowledge and I love it even more when I can share them with others. Sadly, my family just don't appreciate all the many lovely things Wikipedia and my other good friends teach me. ;-)

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01 Jan 2011, 6:57 am

Did you know Ghengis Khan was a Ginger and 1 in 200 people alive today are descended from him!

Ginger Power.

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01 Jan 2011, 9:23 am

Yeah, "red hair" is just a funny term. There's no such thing as naturally red hair, and likewise there's no such thing as naturally white skin or black skin. They're just odd terms.

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01 Jan 2011, 10:58 am

Laz wrote:

Us Gingers are a persecuted species :cry:

There's a difference between redheads and gingers

Gingers also have the very pale skin and freckles in addition to the red hair. Daywalkers just have red hair, but normal skin complexion.

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02 Jan 2011, 12:35 am

Ok people if you want to get really serious I refer you to this online book: "The March of the Titans" http://www.white-history.com/

Red haired people (or their mummies) have turned up in the strangest places, From China to North America to Easter Island.

Whatever genes cause red hair must be very important.

Anyway, read the book. I liked it so much that I bought a hard bound copy.

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02 Jan 2011, 8:27 am

Isn't it that certain mummification processes can make hair turn red after death? I think that I read something to that extent concerning bodies conserved in bogs. Obviously the bog fluids change the pigments in the hair over time.
I also dimly remember reading something similar about South American mummies, but I can't come up with details at the moment.

All that I want to say is that not every mummy that appears to have red hair now must neccessarily have been a red-haired person in life, so that book of yours might be overemphasizing the occurence and importance of red-haired mummies, Wombat.

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Asp-Z
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02 Jan 2011, 8:39 am

FTM wrote:

Who calls hair red? Everyone I know calls it ginger. Maybe it's just Americans getting the English language wrong again. Don't know if you've noticed yet but Red Indians are neither red nor Indian.

+1.

It's always confused me when people do that. It's obviously not red. That's like saying WP is orange.

BTW, the girl in the OP = hot.

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02 Jan 2011, 9:27 am

This is how somebody would look, if they had naturally red hair.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU1iq9rqYJ0&feature=related[/youtube]

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04 Jan 2011, 12:29 am

CockneyRebel wrote:

This is how somebody would look, if they had naturally red hair.

A clown? Clowns are scary! Just think of all the children who will see that and have nightmares!! How about something nice, like a vampire?

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04 Jan 2011, 7:44 am

Vampires do look a lot nicer.

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There is no such thing as naturally red hair