sciencescribbler:

thetiredpianist:

farrentalon:

young-il-long-kiyoshi:

cryoverkiltmilk:

squeeful:

ineptshieldmaid:

marzipanandminutiae:

feels-for-the-fictional:

satanpositive:

Roses are red, that much is true, but violets are purple, not fucking blue.

I have been waiting for this post all my life.

They are indeed purple,
But one thing you’ve missed:
The concept of “purple”
Didn’t always exist.

Some cultures lack names
For a color, you see.
Hence good old Homer
And his “wine-dark sea.”

A usage so quaint,
A phrasing so old,
For verses of romance
Is sheer fucking gold.

So roses are red.
Violets once were called blue.
I’m hugely pedantic
But what else is new?

My friend you’re not wrong

About Homer’s wine-ey sea!

Colours are a matter

Of cultural contingency;

Words are in flux

And meanings they drift

But the word purple

You’ve given short shrift.

The concept of purple,

My friends, is old

And refers to a pigment

once precious as gold.

By crushing up molluscs

From the wine-dark sea

You make a dye:

Imperial decree

Meant that in Rome,

to wear purpura

was a privilege reserved

For only the emperor!

The word ‘purple’,

for clothes so fancy,

Entered English

By the ninth century

.

Why then are voilets

Not purple in song?

The dye from this mollusc,

known for so long

Is almost magenta;

More red than blue.

The concept of purple

is old, and yet new.

The dye is red,

So this might be true:

Roses are purple

And violets are blue

.

While this song makes me merry,
Tyrian purple dyes many a hue
From magenta to berry
And a true purple too.

But fun as it is to watch this poetic race
The answer is staring you right in the face:
Roses are red and violets are blue
Because nothing fucking rhymes with purple.

IT GOT SO MUCH BETTER.

My reaction, only with coffee.

Hang on, need to send this to my literature prof

Fun fact: Hirple (a cousin word to ‘hobble’) is a real English word meaning ‘to walk with a limp’ and does, in fact, rhyme with purple. As does quirpele, a proper noun for a type of mongoose, and curple, the rear strap of a horse’s girth (though that one is believed by some to just be a result of the scottish mispronouncing ‘crupper’). 

Also, to the point above:

The color today that we now know as violet
Was not in its time such a word so inviolate, 
For when it was first laid down, inked upon page
Language was rather different from our age.

First wrote Edmund Spenser, in his “Faerie Queene”,
Of the redness of roses, and as, in that scene
He called violets “Blew” which at least in those days
Meant “Blue” though spelling was oft varied, in ways. 

And the reason that Spenser called Violets “Blue?” 
It was not just perception at fault (though that too). 
It was simply because the word had not come west,
Though the term further east was well known, as you’ve guessed. 

And it is well worth noting, as we rhyme and write
That the term was perhaps also slightly more right:
For the violet, darker and deeper in shades
Had a much more ‘blue’ color in forested glades…

At least when it grew in the UK, that’s true:
Some types of the violet looked far more blue. 
Other types can be also yellow, creamy, or white. 
And a few of them grow darkest blue, like deep night. 

Yes the language has changed, and the meaning of ‘blue’, 
But the flowers have changed, as most living things do. 
So no need to be weighed down by rhyming with purple, 
If you get too tripped up, you might limp, and then hirple.