Apr. 23: Hey, that's actually a quasi-legit question! What can I say? I was curious.

How would you describe color to a blind person? And none of that scientific crap either. What would you say if a guy blind from birth came up to you and said "Please describe color to me. What is it like?"

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Yahoo! Answers:

pink brown yellow orange purple red blue black... they are cool colors too bad you cant see them
(Well that's not a very tactful way to approach it.)

They are just a bunch of different EM don;t worry about it

Wow...that is very hard.
You cant say anything like.."its bright" or "dark" because they are blind so...
I guess you cant :(

I'd say, you see that color you're seeing now? *yeah*, that's the color black. And every other color is brighter than that but in different shades.
(Yes, because the blind will grasp the concept of shades.)

Give them eye surgery then show colors.
(I could be wrong, but I don't think it works like that.)

hahaha. did you know colour blind people can see colours, they just see the wrong colours. like we see blue, they see green.
but to a blind person/
colours can be bright and dark. what you see now is what we call the colour black. :)
(Whenever you want to give back the 5 seconds of my life you just took from me, that'd be great.)

Well, Stevie Wonder was at an interview once, and he was asked " What's worst then being born blind?"
His reply"Well, I could have been born black"

tell them that its like a tecture, they look different just like they feel different

Say it something used to describe what something looks like same as words like smooth, rough, wet color describes something.
-thats the best I can do, it's hard to explain without seeing it.
(Which would be the whole point of the question.)

In terms of hot and cold, stuffy and airy, soft and hard.
(For future reference, this is R.)

A great scene from the film "Mask" goes like this:
A teenage boy is describing colors to a blind girl. He has her hold out her hands and puts ice in them. "That is blue", he says. He repeats the process for red "hot".
Not sure how one would do other colors.

it is the most fantastic thing that you will NEVER,EVER experience!!!
come on people, it is the jokes section.
(And yet, surprisingly, everyone there still thinks you are the world's biggest douchebag.)

When you are mad associate that with red
loneliness -black
Envy - green
something like that i guess

I'm with R - they wouldn't know it anyway. If blind from birth they wouldn't even understand colour.
I'd be like:
Blue = wet
Yellow = warm
Red = hot
Green = grass texture
Pink = soft/squishy
Brown = wood
(I like that the only thing you could come up with for green was "grass texture".)

R said it as close as can be described. but it still would not suffice for the blind person

i have no idea.... and whatever you tell them about colors they wont get it....

It's like a flavor for your eyes.

The person who not able to recognize RGB colors.
(.... You're an idiot. There, I said it, let's move on.)

smells , say red smell like a tomatoe ,cherry , or strawberries ,
brown smells like chocolate , trash can , soil
blue blueberry frosty , blackberry cobbler , cotton perfume
white smells like clean sheets , taste like rain or ice.
black taste like licorice candy , coal , oil , gasoline ,
green , watermelon jelly rancher , kiwi , green onions , fresh grass
yellow feels like the sunlight bleeding through your clothes or skin in the winter when its soo cold but the sun warms everything up. Yellow is laughter of children.
White is pure , relaxing , church , wedding gown.
Purple is unique mysterious , magic , voodoo , mardi gra , grapes
(What a huge waste of time. And really, "laughter of children"? "Voodoo"? Yeah, that's gonna help.)

You would never understand I am sorry for your disability.
(I really hope you aren't serious.)

it's an aethestic quality. It adds personality, identity, and uniqueness to everyday things. Along with texture and shape, it characterizes things.

I'm not sure if you can. Imagine if there is a color out there we have not yet experienced, how would it look? It's just something you can't put into words unfortunately.

It's like a depth
(No, it's really not.)

ohhh toughy...i really am htinking abut it, and i will get back to you on that one.
(Cool, just give me a call. I highly value your input.)

well if its green, and only certain colors they cant see, id say its like blue and yellow mixed together. if they are fully blind then there is no feasible way to do this.
(Why would I bother asking this if they could see some colors?)

It's like that thing you'll never see
(Highlight below to see the blind person's response to this:

You are a

J

A

C

K

A

LOPE

Come on, you didn't think I was really going to go there did you? And if you didn't get this, I'm sorry. I meant for it to go down a little differently.)

I would say "no ablo englaise" then make stomping noises so he would think I was walking away (but really I'd be standing there pretending to hump his leg).

By taste! Red is a chile pepper (hot and spicy), blue is ice (cool), green is basil (bright and verdant), yellow is lemon custard (bright with a zing), white is mint (like a cool breathe of winter)etc.

(Administrative Comment: I don't buy that using other descriptive type things to describe color would work. Do you really think it's going to go down like this?:

You: Oh, color? Yeah, it's sort of like taste or texture but not. It characterizes something.

Blind Guy: Wait, you mean 'blue' and 'green' and all that... those are adjectives? Oh wow, I hadn't figured that one out. I am no longer curious.

No it's not gonna work like that.)