I’m not a linguist, so go slow, but can you explain how it can’t be both? Even out descriptions today can be examples of how people talk about color and how it develops linguistically (in my very uninformed opinion). I come at this from the angle of a painter. Saying ‘yellow ochre’ makes sense to me, but it also involves the whole history of the word ochre, right? Again not arguing just genuinely confused by the particulars

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But…but it literally is. Homer had to use terms to describe the depth/hue of the color bc of the nature of the Greek language at the time of writing. It is a description. It is not always used in that pairing either. He reused the “oinops” half of the phrase to describe oxen as reddish-brown. Sorry you can’t undo years of historical and linguistic studies on a topic bc you disagree. That’s not a pet peeve that’s just being flat wrong 😭

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