The Democratic Chaos of Language vs. the Curated Precision of Science

The entry for geranium lake in Webster's Third New International Dictionary describes it as "a vivid red that is lighter and slightly yellower and stronger than apple red, yellower, lighter, and stronger than carmine, and bluer, lighter, and stronger than scarlet." Another entry defines geranium red as being "slightly lighter than Goya." How did color definitions this complex and weird end up in dictionaries? Lexicographer Kory Stamper's new book True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color from Azure to Zinc Pink (Bookshop|Amazon) answers that question, tracing the collision between what she calls the democratic chaos of language and the curated precision of science, plus the challenge of lexicographers struggling to write about color in an era of mass production, military supply chains, and increasingly sophisticated colorimetry. This is part of a complete episode.