Although many people use the word “green” several times a day, constantly, how many of you have ever researched a bit over what green really means or has meant in the past. We were curious to find out the answer, so starting today we will try to sum up the most important features that must be known by everyone, when talking “green”.
The color green
Of course, we have to start with the most basic of all meanings, and that is the color green. According to Wikipedia, the color green is not a primary color, since it is created by mixing blue and yellow, or cyan and yellow. Looking at it on a RGB color wheel, the complement of green is magenta; while on a color wheel based on traditional color theory (RYB), the complementary color to green is considered to be red.
There are 57 different shades of green attested in the world, and when you look at them, you can actually see the difference! The natural greens, from forest to lime, are seen as tranquil and refreshing. Green is considered the color of peace and ecology and it affects us at a physical level in different ways: it relaxes us mentally, as well as physically, it helps us get over depression, nervousness, and anxiety and it offers us a sense of renewal, self-control, and harmony.
Green Holidays
The most well-known holiday all around the world that uses a bunch of green is Saint Patrick’s Day. This holiday was originally a Roman Catholic feast day for Ireland’s patron saint, celebrated only in Ireland since before the 1600s. But it evolved into a secular holiday in the 1700s, when Irish immigrants had the opportunity to make a political and cultural statement along with celebrating St Paddy’s Day abroad.
Nowadays, it evolved into a transcontinental holiday, being celebrated all over the world, from Taiwan to Oslo. But why the color green? According to some sources, blue was the first color associated with St. Patrick’s Day, but that started to change in the 17th century. Green is one of the colors in Ireland’s tri-color flag, and it has been used in the flags of several Irish revolutionary groups throughout history. Ireland is the “Emerald Isle”, so named for its lush green landscape. Green is also the color of spring, the shamrock, and the Chicago River, which the Midwestern city has dyed green on St. Patrick’s Day for the past 40-odd years.
Green in urban legends
This urban legend about green that we learned from Urbanlegends.com it has first seen the light of day in America, in the 1970s. What do chocolate, green, ladies and fertility symbols all have in common? Our urban legend of today: green M&Ms are aphrodisiacs.
We all know the graphical representation of the red M&M and the yellow one, but how many of you have seen the Mars Company representation of Green M&M? Not many, I know, because a lot of controversy has been floating around this particular sweet candy. I’ve have heard it theorized that the color green has been a symbol of fertility from time beyond history, but nothing convinces me that tale has a solid truth behind it.
The interesting part of this story is that in 1991, “a smart cookie with a head for a fast buck”, Wendy Jaffe, picked up on the ‘Green M&M’ myth and went in business producing generic green chocolate filled pill shaped candies she named simply ‘The Green Ones’. In order to advertise her candy as much as possible, she started affirming “They make you horny”. Just to prove it, she went on a TV show, “Studs,” and dated two men from the show. One man she gave a package of her candy, the other she didn’t. One man got much more action than the other. This proved positive the magical power of her candy. But this didn’t matter for Mars Company, which decided to sue her for her action.
In the end, the good folks over at Mars denied the Green M&M having the power to seduce anything more than that big dumb M&M yellow peanut.
This completes our doodles for this week. We hope you had fun finding out new and interesting things about Green. Check in with us in the next weeks, to find out more and more about it.
