HRH The Duke of Edinburgh

[gazbot]

http://news.yahoo.com/palace-prince-...162807126.html

Any body have any guesses what colour His Royal Highnesses hose are in the picture?

[plaid preacher]

I'm going grey. The Earl of Wessex is wearing what might be called a dove grey. The Duke's seem to be darker, but they seem to be in similar attire with grey tweed over the Balmoral tartan and grey hose. A good looking ensemble.

[DougC]

Don't care who he is...he's wearing Campbell. Good enough for me.

[artificer]

Prince Phillip's kilt appears much warmer than the standard Balmoral Tartan (seen behind him and below on Prince Charles)




If I had a guess I'd say his hose are probably 'putty' or 'mushroom', or at a stretch (if the photo colours have been altered to improve other areas) Lovat Green.

ith:

[M. A. C. Newsome]

They are grey hose. Does it really matter if we want to call them "putty" or "mushroom" or "dove grey" or the like? Honestly, if someone called me up and asked if I had any "putty colored hose" I wouldn't know what to tell them....

[OC Richard]

Yes these colour terms get silly, but still, "grey" often is used to refer to a "cool" grey while "putty" and "mushroom" respectively usually refer to greys that are progressively warmer, with a bit more brown in them, on the continuum between white and brown (while grey is on the continuum between white and black). If I were selling something halfway between an ordinary cool grey and taupe, I probably wouldn't call it "grey" but possibly "mushroom" or "putty" and most people would know what it meant.

So in the lower photo Charles' hose I would call "grey" but his kilt "putty". In the upper photo I would call Philip's kilt "tan".

BTW it's a strange oddity of English that there are so many colours which we don't have words for, but for colours in between white and brown we have a large number of words for (beige, tan, khaki, bone, ecru, buff, oatmeal, fawn, sand, camel, taupe, putty, mushroom, biscuit, and who knows what else).

[artificer]

They are grey hose. Does it really matter if we want to call them "putty" or "mushroom" or "dove grey" or the like? Honestly, if someone called me up and asked if I had any "putty colored hose" I wouldn't know what to tell them....

You never want to get designers started on discussing colours, Matt.

Yes these colour terms get silly, but still, "grey" often is used to refer to a "cool" grey while "putty" and "mushroom" respectively usually refer to greys that are progressively warmer, with a bit more brown in them, on the continuum between white and brown (while grey is on the continuum between white and black). If I were selling something halfway between an ordinary cool grey and taupe, I probably wouldn't call it "grey" but possibly "mushroom" or "putty" and most people would know what it meant.

So in the lower photo Charles' hose I would call "grey" but his kilt "putty". In the upper photo I would call Philip's kilt "tan".

BTW it's a strange oddity of English that there are so many colours which we don't have words for, but for colours in between white and brown we have a large number of words for (beige, tan, khaki, bone, ecru, buff, oatmeal, fawn, sand, camel, taupe, putty, mushroom, biscuit, and who knows what else).

*** (bolding mine)

For most designers true grey is a % of black somewhere between 1% and 99%.
A term like "Warm Grey" or "Cool Grey" is pretty vague. HOW warm? a red tint or more yellow? Brownish perhaps? Same with cool- you can tint green, blue, even purple.
That's why terms like mushroom, putty, slate, dove, and cadet get used. They save innumerable headaches trying to pin down how intense the grey (as a % of black) and with what other colour it should be tinted.

-as a total aside, when my wife and I were painting several rooms we spent 3 days with about 75 different colour chips taped to our walls watching the various shades as the morning, midday, evening, and finally artificial light fell on them,
Each time pulling off the chips that we disliked in a particular light.
Then about 3 more days arguing about the remaining 6 samples (3 each). Which is why I said you never want to get designers going on colours.

A fascinating article on grey can be found on wiki HERE.

[Father Bill]

A fascinating article on grey can be found on wiki HERE.

So... you think decorators argue a lot about this colour, but don't you mean "gray"?


Sorry, Scott; the devil made me do it.

[artificer]

So... you think decorators argue a lot about this colour, but don't you mean "gray"?


Sorry, Scott; the devil made me do it.

You'll have to pry (prise) the "e" from my cold, dead hands.

ith:

[Phil]

So... you think decorators argue a lot about this colour, but don't you mean "gray"?



Sorry, Scott; the devil made me do it.

"Grey is the British, Canadian, Australian, Irish, New Zealand and South African spelling, although gray remained in common usage in the UK until the second half of the 20th century.[5] Gray is the preferred American spelling, although grey is an accepted variant.[6][7] Gray became the preferred spelling in American English around 1825." - Wikipedia