Conversation This Week, Part 3
Sometimes, just sometimes I surprise myself.
A woman in the office helping me to understand the colour coded charts. I am colourblind. Hello.
I explained this, and after the initial questions (”Oooh what colour is this then?”) followed by slow-blinking, deadpan, incredulous and silent response from me, she started explaining what each colour meant, like it would help me actually see them.
“Red - ” she said, “that means you are not hitting the targets.”
I swear she was slowing down her speech.
“Green, right?” she explained thoughtfully, “That means that you are hitting your targets. That’s what green means.”
You can’t explain green to someone who doesn’t know what it is. It’s not like a language you can teach someone.
“You realise you’re explaining sunflowers to an Eskimo,” I said. Every so often I can say things which do more than I meant them to do.
She smiled out of character, like a kid this time, where the eyebrows go up and the mouth stays closed. It’s a delightful, restrained, grateful, desert-menu smile.
May 1st, 2006 at 10:07 am
Sadly, I’d be too busy glaring at her to make comments like that.
May 1st, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Oops.
I’ve had the “what colour is that” conversation with colourblind people before.
“What colour is that?”
“Green.”
“No, I mean, how do you see it? What colour does it look like to you?”
“Green.”
“No - well, I mean, obviously it is green, but…”
…etc. Sometimes I am not very clever, you see.
May 1st, 2006 at 2:07 pm
You mean you see entirely in shades of gray? I have a friend who is color-blind and he sees greens as golds and reds as something he doesn’t know the name of. Apparently he has real problems with the color blue, too. But he’s learned that HIS version of red equates to OUR version of red, so whenever he sees HIS version of red he can safely assume that it’s OUR version of red too.
And though it doesn’t provide as many opportunities for comedy, it does get him by
May 1st, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Katy - it’s an easy mistake. But imagine someone saying “I am tone deaf”, and you saying: “Really? What note is this? Laaaaaaaa”
Ed - your friend is right. There is a colour I equate to red, but once it gets past a certain “redness” I don’t know what to call it, because it looks like the colour I equate to green. Green, by the way, when it is in certain shades, looks like something you and I would both call “green”. Apart from when it’s red. I can see blues and all their differences just fine (hence colour of this site). Green is the worst for me.
I get by, apart from when someone says, “Can you see my car? The green one?” and I say, “It is facing the fence or away from it? Or it the one with the square headlights?” and they say “The GREEN one” and I have to keep probing for more information.
Fun and games.
It’s great when they hand out colour-coded spreadsheets and graphs in meetings at work and discuss them. “So what do you think, Cliff. Does that look do-able?” Me: “Um, is the green one is the one shaped like the Nike symbol?”
Thanks for your interest.
May 1st, 2006 at 5:41 pm
I had that problem ( trouble seeing greens ) in a mild fashion when younger, but for some reason, in my mid to late ’30s , after I cut out sugar for a long time, I recognized that I coudl see the patterns in the color-blindness tests at the eye doctor’s much better than I ever could before. Of course, I couldn’t FOCUS , but I could see colors. I guess life is a trade-off.
May 3rd, 2006 at 1:37 am
Ed - are you sure that was sugar?
I’m hoping this ‘chatty Colleague’ isn’t the same person or I might have had to take a green/red machete to work some days!
We’re lead to believe that greens/reds are greys because of those silly dot splodge charts we get shown at the opticians!
None of us know if our greens are everyone else’s greens do we?
May 3rd, 2006 at 10:36 pm
My green is green because you guys who can see colors call it green. I never ever know any colorname, I just try to find the right name you guys are so sure about.
I do like the story very much. It sounds to me like: “Hey Cliff, it’s not that hard with colors. Just focus and listen to me…”
Happy me it never happened to me.
Concerning the ‘color game’, I always play along with the first two to three colors. And then I start to drive them mad… This is yellow. No? But..ok it is blue. Or red? Oh now I am confused.
By the way, I cut out on meat but it didn’t help at all. Just in case somebody wanted to try it out.