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Green onions are green but not onions!
Not with that attitude
In my language it’s called a purple onion
and the we call white onions red
Red Onions (and every other not-red food that’s called red) is older in the English language than the word “purple”.
Purple is a relatively modern concept in English having first been used circa 900AD. Before that basically everything towards the magenta part of the spectrum was all just called red.
See also Orange, the colour is named after the fruit and not the other way round.
It’s the same reason why ”Violets are blue”.
See also: ‘robin red breast’ to describe the European robin, which very clearly has an orange breast:
Lil-red-throat in German
The concept of purple is older than English, though. I guess when English chose to adopt it is the main question, but should be clarified that the term where “purple” derives from goes back to the ancient Romans, who recognized it as a distinct color used for royalty given the difficulty in obtaining it.
It does have me wondering exactly when red onions first arrived in the UK, or what the Romans may have called it (potentially before those dirty Britons got their hands on it).
I also know that, when boiled, they yield a very rich, red color. Could maybe be named “red” due to that? Some Orthodox Christians/eastern Europeans traditionally use red onions to dye eggs for Easter.
Before that basically everything towards the magenta part of the spectrum was all just called red.
And before that we have people looking at colours entirely differently, like Homer calling the sea the colour of red wine.
Which my Greek teacher would explain by saying “my pencil is the the same shade of yellow as your book is blue”.
Or perhaps Homer was colorblind?
I was always curious about this! I’m bilingual and I always get mixed up because they’re actually called “purple onions” in Spanish. I always forget which language calls it which, but knowing this is definitely helpful!
In Bangla, we call the color peyaji, which is basically “onion-y”. It’s also what we call onion fritters, and they’re absolutely delicious.
Edit: Just remembered that we also use it as a slang for fucking around. Not sure where that came from lol.
Yum, onion fritters!
Wow, thank you!
Now when people call me color-blind cause I don’t care about color matching or their names, I can just say I’m very old fashioned!
Blue cheese is almost entirely creamy-offwhite coloured.
It at least has some parts that are a blueish green.
What really breaks my brain is that the pigment responsible for this purple hue are called anthocyanins. It literally has a root-word for blue in the name, even though that’s not the only color it can make.
Red foxes are clearly orange. Black tea is clearly red. White grapes are clearly green.
Black tea refers to the visible degree of oxidation of the tea leaves - yellow, white and green teas all do the same thing. Similarly, white grapes are called that because they produce white (clear) liquid (though it’s clearly yellowish so they should really be called yellow grapes…).
Black tea refers to the visible degree of oxidation of the tea leaves
Makes sense
grapes are called that because they produce white (clear) liquid
Even if it produced indisputably white liquid. Why not call it after its own color while tea is named after the color of its processed leaves?
You’d expect tea which is thought of as a drink to be known for the color of the liquid, and grapes often eaten as is to be named after their color.
But it doesn’t really matter, any of these could’ve been named after whichever color they were at any point of their making / preparation. It’s not like there’s a convention or something
To make the tea thing even better, in English when referring to Chinese black teas, they are called red tea instead… Because that’s the color of the liquid.
That being said, if its label says red tea, its probably way higher quality than the tea bags you have at home.
Or it’s delicious, store brand rooibos
But rooibos isn’t tea - or did a joke woosh me?
You mean like how chamomile isn’t tea? Because I probably call chamomile broth “tea” 100% of the time. Tea for me is anything steeped in muslin in boiling or near boiling water that you might sweeten
I fuckin love rooibos, I don’t know what it is about it because I generally don’t care that much for tea.
I’m also not big on tea, but rooibos tastes like essence of baked goods to me
A black box is orange. A red panda is brown. A great white is mostly grey.
No. They are maroon.
No need to insult them
Are you calling me a moron?!
Really blew my mind when I found out that red onions are just ripe white onions.
That is not true?
Just like a Granny Smith’s will never be a Fuji Apple. A Red Onion will never be a Yellow Onion.
Unless you’re making a joke about peppers. Peppers are the same plant.
WHAT!!
If I pickle them in vinegar, they turn bright pink, if I alkalize them in baking soda, they turn blue, if I cook them slowly in butter they turn a deep brown color.
Red onion skin is part of kids science experiments about PH. I just did that experiment with my kids not long ago.
Grapes, too.
Yeah, my three years old kid really debating me about this. Insisting that it’s purple onions. Can’t really argue
They’re in a red netting, obviously!
BURN HIM!!!
