Roses Are Red That Much Is True but Violets Are Purple Not Fucking Blue Feels-For-The-Fictional I Have Been Waiting for This Post All My Life Marzipanandminutiae They Are Indeed Purple but One Thing You've Missed the Concept of Purple Didn't Always Exist Some Cultures Lack Names for a Color You See Hence Good Old Homer and His Wine-Dark Sea a Usage So Quaint a Phrasing So Old for Verses of Romance Is Sheer Fucking Gold So Roses Are Red Violets Once Were Called Blue I'm Hugely Pedantic but What Else Is New? Ineptshieldmaid My Friend You're Not Wrong About Homer's Wine-Ey Sea! Colours Are a Matter of Cultural Contingency Words Are in Flux and Meanings They Drift but the Word Purple You've Given Short Shrift the Concept of Purple My Friends Is Old and Refers to a Pigment Once Precious as Gold by Crushing Up Molluscs From the Wine-Dark Sea You Make a Dye Imperial Decree Meant That in Rome to Wear Purpura Was a Privilege Reserved for Only the Emperor! The Word Purple for Clothes So Fancy Entered English by the Ninth Century Why Then Are Voilets Not Purple in Song? The Dye From This Mollusc Known for So Long Is Almost Magenta More Red Than Blue the Concept of Purple Is Old and Yet New the Dye Is Red So This Might Be True Roses Are Purple and Violets Are Blue Squeeful While This Song Makes Me Merry Tyrian Purple Dyes Many a Hue From Magenta to Berry and a True Purple Too but Fun as It Is to Watch This Poetic Race the Answer Is Staring You Right in the Face Roses Are Red and Violets Are Blue Because Nothing Fucking Rhymes With Purple Its Long but Its Good