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From: cbmvax!uunet!math.ucla.edu!jimc
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To: lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com
Subject: Re: The 20 new gismu 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 15 Jun 91 16:26:31 EDT."
             <9106152026.AA13058@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu> 
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 91 08:51:57 -0700
Status: RO
X-From-Space-Date: Mon Jun 17 15:20:45 1991
X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!math.ucla.edu!jimc

la .iVAN cusku di'e:
> I have never used the English words "magenta" and "cyan", and I have only
> seen them in PC reference manuals (two of the screen colours), not in real
> life.  Given that so many languages have no separate words for `blue' and
> `green', or special words for `purple' or `violet', and also given that it
> is so easy to build a tanru for a particular shade of any of the basic
> colours (whatever this may mean), I think that including these two words
> is quite inappropriate.

The words magenta and cyan are certainly not commonly used in the
languages I know -- but maybe they ought to be.  Recently I have been
teaching my kid to mix colors, and when you use these as basis colors
(with yellow)  you can explain subtractive colors coherently and
understandably through their relation with additive colors.  Sure, you
can use tanru (purplish red, blue-green) but it gives the impression
that the colors aren't "real" and it's harder for the student to get
over this obstacle.

I vote for magenta and cyan.

		-- jimc