I focused on just the color “blue” the other day, but today I have just a few quick expressions to show that both German and English are full of many colorful expressions. Literally.

Weiß “white” – someone whose sick in German will look weiß im Gesicht,  “white-faced”. In English we can say someone who looks sick looks pale, but if you are “white as a ghost”, you’ve been scared by something, you’re not sick.

Schwartz “black” – If you’re travelling without a ticket on public transportation, you’re said to be “travelling black.” Interesting, all the students in my class knew this one in German, as the fines for doing this are prominently posted on the city buses, and the signs have the admonition Nicht fahren Sie Schwartz!, to remind you to buy a ticket on the bus.

Rosa “pink” – sort of like in English, if you’re looking always very optimistic and not seeing things as they really are, you’re looking at the world through rosa Brille, literally, pink-colored glasses.

Rot “red” – in both English and German, if you “see red”, sieht rot, you’re really angry.

Grün “green” – In German, if you’re not experienced or generally new to something, you are grün hinter den Ohren, literally “green behind the ears”. Now, in English we do say a person who is new is either just “green” or “wet behind the ears.” Interesting that the German one is a combination of the two expressions.  I never really thought about it, but the English use of “he is green” to mean inexperienced gives a completely different meaning to the song the Muppet Kermit sings. However, although I don’t think being inexperienced is ever mentioned  in Kermit’s song.

Gelb “yellow” – there’s not really an expression to go with this, but the word for yellow, gelb, is used to refer to all the packaging materials that can be recycled, like plastic in any form. It’s all collected in a yellow plastic bag, hence it’s referred to as the gelb trash. We didn’t learn any expression for cowardice in German involving yellow; that’s the only use of “yellow” I can think of in English, though.

BTW, in Italian the word for yellow, giallo, means “mystery”, because the mystery books are published with a yellow cover.

Anyway, I’d intended to end with a link to someone singing the song The Colors of My Life, from the musical Barnum. But I couldn’t find a good version of that in a quick scan of stuff on YouTube. But my search on YouTube did uncover this link to Torvill and Dean’s 1983 World Championship performance to music from Barnum. Which is sort of related today’s theme.

After all it is a “gold” standard my book of what an ice dance performance should be. 😉