“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)
My mother, whom everyone fondly calls Lola (who just celebrated her birthday a few days ago), is smitten with a particular colour called “old rose.” She has been on the lookout for quite some time now for some fabric that comes in this elusive shade.
The ISCC-NBS Dictionary of Colour Names shows the various shades of old rose as below:-
The makcik (auntie) in our office cafeteria calls the same colour “warna belacan” (‘the colour of shrimp paste’).
Photo from Wikipedia of belacan being sold in a market in Malaysia
So tell me, would ‘old rose’ still smell as sweet if it were called ‘the colour of shrimp paste’?
and imagine if chocolate brown was really called “the color of poop”. i doubt if we’d still look at chocolate in the same way! he! he!
happy weekend mimi!
reminds me of Saussure’s signifier and signified theory. hehe. well, you’re right, it wouldn’t smell as sweet, and it’ll have a different set of ideas associated with it. :)
When I eat sambal belacan, I would not think of old rose:-)
I remember there was a time that I got very fond of anything old rose. I think I’ve accumulated at least 10 tops with such color. Now, I’m into purple. =)
I will never ever think of old rose while eating shrimp paste, it will surely ruin the thought of goodness in old rose…
i love old rose too!
talking about shrimp paste makes my mouth water; i wouldn’t be able to associate it with old rose, but rather with manggang hilaw and suka! namit! ^-^
I remember when I was in high school and some of the students acted as teachers for the day. Do you remember this? We wore a top and a skirt in that color (old rose). It’s not everybody’s color – that I can say.
ah, the bagoong cake!!!!
sarap nyan with mangang manibalang, yummy!
btw, ganyan pala ang bagoong dyan sa malaysia, thanks for the photo, old rose pa kulay, orig na kulay ba yan or “tampered”?
LOL. No, that wouldn’t be the same at all! My best friend and I just had a color discussion because she’s getting married. She didn’t want to use Tiffany Blue because a cousin had already used it. So she shows me something she calls Teal Green. HELLO, parehos lang. I told her, “That is NOT teal, it’s Tiffany Blue.” She goes, “Nye, di wag na lang.” Ahahaha. (Hi Mimi!)
gwen: “mentors’ day” :) i miss those days. i was a ‘teacher’ when i was in grade 5 & 6 but we just wore our sunday best. i moved to msu for high school remember?
francesca: there are 2 types: belacan, the dry type, and cincalok [chin-cha-lo], the wet type. belacan is darker & resembles old rose. cincalok is light pink.
j, kg, mordsmith: words play a huge part in altering our perception of things. for instance, “home-style southern fried chicken” sounds so much better than plain old “fried chicken”, don’t you think? if i remember correctly, a study’s been done on this (words & how they alter perception/anticipation) but i can’t remember if i read it from the net or a local newspaper.
hahaha! the difference between the visual image of “shrimp paste” totally clashes with “old rose” ;-) ah, the power of words!