I was at a consulting job yesterday after work for a land architect. I had to write several software serial numbers down working on his laptop. I noticed all his pins were red.
I tried writing in red ink once... I got it returned, graded in a really pastel green, with a note saying "Please use black. I hate green." This is a very interesting site. It's different, an interesting collection of sentances taken out of context, to just view the beauty of the words themselves. My favorite out-of-context quote is from Ray Bradbury: "Holding a book, but reading the empty spaces." I do this a lot. Especially while I'm supposed to be studying. Thank you.
I once wrote a check in red ink. The person I wrote it to brought it back because their bank wouldn't cash it -- as if that was a signal it was bad (that it probably was is beside the point). Wait, is that where the term red ink comes from?
To Howard: I think that God doesn't use ink in writing.. At least because he used to write before ink was invented!!! Hope starts with small signs Ramy
Thanks for the comments, folks, and the stories about using red ink. Quite interesting, actually.
Nancy, "It was a dark and stormy night" is the famed opening to a novel by the novelist Bulwer-Lytton. I don't know the novel, but you can read about the contest here: http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/
Bulwer-Lytton was a well-known novelist in his day, and a schlock writer. The contest's goal is to compete for best in awful writing. Bulwer-Lytton is the man who advised Charles Dickens to change the ending to "Great Expectations"--leaving it with a happy ending, but one that didn't at all fit with the book.
Back in the old days, when we still edited on paper, copy-editors at the University of Chicago Press, Journals Division, were encouraged never to use red ink as it tended to make authors see red (i.e., get angry). Therefore, we used blue, green, and purple (if I remember correctly) for grammatical and stylistic changes, queries to the author, and so on. These niceties tended to keep the authors happier with us as their editors and thus more amenable to our suggestions. I continue to use the same system today as few people like getting papers back that bleed red.
I think it's because red has taken on a bad connotation. Think about it. Fire trucks are red -- something's burning down. Stoplights are red -- you have to stop and wait (something people nowadays don't like doing). Blood is red -- someone's hurt. Red is usually used to correct things -- you made an error, and someone else noticed it. If you're "in the red" you're in debt. If you "see red" you're angry. Red just gets a bad deal nowadays, and using another color takes away that stereotype that red is bad.
I really enjoyed looking over your sight. It woke my mind up after several hours of studying. I know I have seen this sentence before, where did you find it? I remember seeing it way back in high school or the first time round in college since it seemed so profound at the time to write in anything but blue or black. I remember thinking, "Why stop at red?" and began to write everything in a wide variety of colors. I drove my bank crazy by filling out all my checks in purple ink. I still use multiple colors of ink to this day and even change my default colors in my word processing programs periodically, just as the mood strikes. Funny how something as simple as a single sentence can change us!
14 comments:
I was at a consulting job yesterday after work for a land architect. I had to write several software serial numbers down working on his laptop. I noticed all his pins were red.
I tried writing in red ink once... I got it returned, graded in a really pastel green, with a note saying "Please use black. I hate green."
This is a very interesting site. It's different, an interesting collection of sentances taken out of context, to just view the beauty of the words themselves. My favorite out-of-context quote is from Ray Bradbury: "Holding a book, but reading the empty spaces." I do this a lot. Especially while I'm supposed to be studying.
Thank you.
I wonder what color God uses when he writes your name on the book of life. www.dymoke.blogspot.com
I once wrote a check in red ink. The person I wrote it to brought it back because their bank wouldn't cash it -- as if that was a signal it was bad (that it probably was is beside the point). Wait, is that where the term red ink comes from?
" And did no-one correct him?"
To Howard: I think that God doesn't use ink in writing.. At least because he used to write before ink was invented!!!
Hope starts with small signs Ramy
Thanks for the comments, folks, and the stories about using red ink. Quite interesting, actually.
Nancy, "It was a dark and stormy night" is the famed opening to a novel by the novelist Bulwer-Lytton. I don't know the novel, but you can read about the contest here: http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/
Bulwer-Lytton was a well-known novelist in his day, and a schlock writer. The contest's goal is to compete for best in awful writing. Bulwer-Lytton is the man who advised Charles Dickens to change the ending to "Great Expectations"--leaving it with a happy ending, but one that didn't at all fit with the book.
Geof
Haha that's great
Back in the old days, when we still edited on paper, copy-editors at the University of Chicago Press, Journals Division, were encouraged never to use red ink as it tended to make authors see red (i.e., get angry). Therefore, we used blue, green, and purple (if I remember correctly) for grammatical and stylistic changes, queries to the author, and so on. These niceties tended to keep the authors happier with us as their editors and thus more amenable to our suggestions. I continue to use the same system today as few people like getting papers back that bleed red.
I think it's because red has taken on a bad connotation. Think about it. Fire trucks are red -- something's burning down. Stoplights are red -- you have to stop and wait (something people nowadays don't like doing). Blood is red -- someone's hurt. Red is usually used to correct things -- you made an error, and someone else noticed it. If you're "in the red" you're in debt. If you "see red" you're angry.
Red just gets a bad deal nowadays, and using another color takes away that stereotype that red is bad.
Ezzo,
Yet these words are white.
Geof
Island Lady,
Thanks for the insights. Enjoy the Caribbean. I lived there (on Barbados, tho) for three years.
Geof
Elizabeth,
I never put together all the negative associations of red before. Interesting.
Geof
I really enjoyed looking over your sight. It woke my mind up after several hours of studying. I know I have seen this sentence before, where did you find it? I remember seeing it way back in high school or the first time round in college since it seemed so profound at the time to write in anything but blue or black. I remember thinking, "Why stop at red?" and began to write everything in a wide variety of colors. I drove my bank crazy by filling out all my checks in purple ink. I still use multiple colors of ink to this day and even change my default colors in my word processing programs periodically, just as the mood strikes. Funny how something as simple as a single sentence can change us!
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