rant whine 'splain espouse: Thursday Top 5

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Thursday Top 5

The magenta wars
A meme has been rounding the Internet based on the article “Magenta ain’t a colour”, in which author Liz Elliott appears to make a sound argument for the fact that magenta does not, in fact, exist in the color spectrum. Since magenta is probably my least favorite color, I was at first keen on the idea, but, generally speaking, I have a hard time believing someone when they tell me something doesn’t exist when I’ve actually seen that something with my own eyes. To wit: I’ve seen magenta. I’ve seen magenta things. For one thing, Elliott’s very article contains a magenta dot, so I must either question her sanity or her eyesight. For another thing, magenta ink is one of the four colors that makes up nearly every printed-on-paper item on the planet, so unless they just all disappeared in the moment since I last looked at pretty much anything on my desk or in my office (and keeping in mind that this idea does actually appeal to me on one level, as it would make a splendidly absurd plot addition to a new Hitchhiker’s novel), I’m fairly certain that this has not happened, and just to make sure, I’ve been glancing at pieces of paper every few words as I type this. Thirdly, there are quite a few naturally-occuring magenta things in the universe, like flowers for instance. So unless all the magenta flowers have disappeared...well you know the rest. And fourth, as if we really needed any more ammunition at this point in our defense of the color magenta (perhaps all the flowers and pieces of paper in your part of the galaxy have just vanished?), there comes this rather good response article by Chris Foresman, from which I learned a thing or two: “Yes, Virginia, there is a magenta.”