#Color me happy books tv#
The Oxford English Dictionary dates “color me” to 1963 (and cites an unattributed example from that year in a promotion for the US TV comedy “I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster”), but, given the fact that coloring books first became available in the late 1870s, I’d be surprised if the phrase weren’t quite a bit older.Tessa Bailey, a titan of steamy romance, is a New York Times–bestselling author with hundreds of thousands of followers across her social media accounts. A few years of seeing such instructions and you’re ready, decades later when your husband strays, to declare “color me stupid.”Ĭoloring books also develop hand-eye coordination in young children, and generations of teachers urging their charges to “color inside the lines” of the drawings in coloring books have given us “color inside the lines” as a useful metaphor for “follow the rules.” Children armed with a box of crayons of various colors would be instructed by the books to “color the trees green” or “color the pond blue,” thus learning to recognize the words “tree” and “pond” as well as the colors themselves. I’m talking about coloring books for very young children (kinda like iPads, but made from paper). The fact that the internet is apparently awash in people looking for an explanation of “color me” phrases would tend to indicate that the technology, or lack thereof, that underlies the idiom has, sadly, largely dropped from our radar in recent years. Color me gone.” 1963), although it can be used to impart serious emotion as well (“Well, color me stupid, because I didn’t want to believe he was seeing another woman,” T. In its most basic sense, “color me” means “consider me” or “regard me as,” often in a jocular sense (“Me - I just left. “Color” as a verb has been used in a variety of senses, most of which involve either literally or metaphorically applying color (either literal or figurative) to something, which brings us to “color me stupid” and similar “color me” or “color him/her/them” phrases. Since the early 18th century, “color” has also been used to mean “features that make something interesting,” as in “local color” or “color commentary” in sports matches. One of the more interesting uses of “color” has been to mean “pretext” or “excuse” (“The transfer was only a colour for an advance of money,” 1855). The earliest senses of “color” were those related, as you’d expect, to hue, tint, pigment, etc., but almost immediately we also began to employ “color” in various figurative senses, usually regarding appearances, authority or other intangible aspects of society (“This … would at once give the movement the colour of a general revolt,” 1941). However you choose to spell it, “color” comes ultimately from Latin roots that carried the sense of “covering, concealment.”
“Color” is frequently spelled “colour” in British English, reflecting its Anglo-Norman heritage, but “color” is far more frequent elsewhere. The common noun “color” first appeared in English in the early 13th century, and the verb “to color” followed in the 14th. “Color me cautious,” for instance, seems more vivid, and less dismissive, than the dull “I’m skeptical.” Of course, that “color me extremely unconvinced” is pretty dismissive, just a tad shy of declaring something (in that case, a silly theory about “moolah”) to be “utter hogwash.” But it was. But “color me” as a rhetorical device is useful. Thanks to the awesome power of The Google, I see that my website boasts one “color me envious,” one “color me cautious,” a “color me psychic,” a somewhat wobbly “color me extremely unconvinced,” and three, count ’em, three, instances of “color me stupid.” I guess “stupid” wins. I do seem to have used the phrase without explanation quite a few times in my columns. I’ve heard it and used it often myself but where, may I ask, does it come from? - Mark.
Dear Word Detective: The phrase “color me ” appears numerous times on your site.
0 kommentar(er)
