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Bonus 110: The pink-collar labour of colour words - Part II with Kory Stamper | Lingthusiasm
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Bonus 110: The pink-collar labour of colour words - Part II with Kory Stamper
The dedication at the beginning of TRUE COLOR by Kory Stamper is “For Margaret”. When we started reading it, we assumed that Margaret was someone important to Kory herself. But midway through, we got hit with a paintbombshell: Margaret Godlove was also the key to the strangely evocative colour definitions in Webster’s Third International Dictionary. Like this one:
coral: a strong pink that is yellower and stronger than carnation rose; bluer, stronger, and slightly lighter than rose Delphia; and lighter, stronger, and slighter yellower than sea pink.
This bonus episode is the second half of our interview with Kory Stamper about her book on defining colour words, and this half contains spoilers! If you missed the first half, it’s available for free on our main podcast feed, and if you like to experience history spoiler-free in book form, you can pick up True Color first. But then come back here for our discussion with Kory about how she learned about Margaret Godlove and many other women whose labour has been forgotten in early colour science and dictionary making.
Listen to this episode about the secret history of colour terms with Kory Stamper, and get access to many more bonus episodes by supporting Lingthusiasm on Patreon.

I had to ask Kory Stamper about how she found out about this plot twist that she put in True Color, but I also didn’t want to spoil it for people reading the book for the first time, so here it is as a bonus episode to split the difference.

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