"... $COLOR in color."

[vakkotaur]

One peeve some have is about color descriptions. "It was orange in color." is redundant since orange is clearly the color and "It was orange" conveys the same information. I just noticed a situation where the "..in color" line makes sense. While for most colors it is redundant there are some where it conveys necessary information. "The brick was gold in color." has a different meaning than "The brick was gold." The same applies to silver. Color names that are also material names need to be distinguished between mere color and actual material - at least in some cases. If the item described is clearly not the material ("The sunbather's skin was bronze."), then the argument against redundancy returns.

Comments

[rillaspins.livejournal.com]

Ummm---sorry to disagree with you, but some people are color blind. I once handed a cape over to someone I knew to give to his neice. I said "I hope she likes the color." He said "What color is it?" Confused, I said "Kelly green and Rust." "Oh, he said. I am red/green color blind-so it just looks like mud with another color of mud." I am doing a doublet for another man that is color blind. I don't know if the fabric person was pulling his leg or what but she sold him a plum (purple) to line a Maroon (red) fabric. yuch. He couldn't see it.


.....and that is probably not even what you are talking about is it?

Creeps away.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

No, it's not what I was going on about. The "It was orange in color." vs. "It was orange." is a matter of writing style. In both cases the color information (something is orange) is there.

I had a college roommate once who had a color blindness. He once had me write "pink" and "purple" on a couple items of his as he couldn't tell them apart otherwise (and his "friends" delighted in taking one away and requiring him to ask for its return by color...) He said that the color blindness wasn't entirely a bad thing, as when he went hunting the usual animal camouflage simply didn't exist for him - he thought things were rather obvious.

[rillaspins.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, MPR versus Garage Logic.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I listen to Car Talk on MPR, so I get both at once!

[foolscap001.livejournal.com]

Yup. That's up there with my programming pet peeve:

if (woofp == TRUE)
....

if (arfp == FALSE)
....

or worse yet,

if (mumble != TRUE)
....

I can't help being reminded of Tarski's definition of truth: the proposition "snow is white" is true if and only if snow is white.

Do people who code this way talk this way? "If the truth value of the proposition "the movie runs longer than two hours" is true, I'll call you."

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Aside from the curious character of Dover in the Suburban Jungle (http://www.suburbanjungle.com/d/19990322.html) comic strip, I have my doubts.

[tenax.livejournal.com]

Well, depends on exactly what they're comparing to. For example

typedef BOOL int;
#define TRUE -1 /* Or some other, non-zero constant */
#define FALSE 0

BOOL bResult1 = FunkyFunction();
bool bResult2 = FunkyFunction();

For bResult2, it can only have the values "true" and "false". For bResult1, it is possible to have a non-zero value that isn't TRUE. So:

if (bResult1) DoFoo();
if (bResult1 == TRUE) DoBar();

Means that DoFoo() may be called in cases where DoBar() would not.

Personally, I really like Python's definition. 0-length strings, empty lists, empty tuples, the value 0, the value False, and the None value are all considered false. All other values are true.

Bah, look what you made me do! I've spewed geekery all over Vakko's LJ entry.

[foolscap001.livejournal.com]

Sigh. I can't think of Alfred Tarski without a bad idea for a cop show parody, Tarski and Hutch, leaping to mind.

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

Have you seen my apple? It was red-shaped and round in color.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Turkles is silly.

[foolscap001.livejournal.com]

Ah, synaesthesia. What a nice-smelling word.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

Sometimes this kind of redundancy is not a bug, it's a rhetorical device. I have no problem with the phrase "orange in color" if it necessary to give the tone of the sentence the right feel for the context, or to imitate the speech patterns of a particular character in a novel or play.

Most of the time, though, you're right; it's simply redundancy, perpetrated by someone too ignorant to know better or too careless to be concerned about word usage.