Childhood Of The Art Historian, parts 452 - 455

Richard Britell

452. He said that If I wanted to be a man, I was not to refer to purple as violet. So, apparently there was a choice involved, I did not know this, and he was unwilling to elaborate.

453. So, it turned out therefore that the Policeman did not have poor color acuity after all, he must have been a person who knew the rules about being a man, and that is why he was unwilling to call the the jacket of the thief 'chartruce and black checked' but in his manly way just called it 'green coat'. Even now the concept is difficult to grasp because it was so obvious that such a system of manliness would make a mess out of arresting the right persons.

454. It was years before I figured out why my mother thought my book was a sissy's book, but for the time being I abandoned the idea of trying to use my color acuity. Color acuity was going to be a curse, rather than an advantage. Just to be on the safe side I decided to go out for the football team.

455. "You Know" I said to Buboni, "I think I was raised with the same sort of ideas about the descriptions of things, and the use of the wrong words to describe colors although I don't recall anyone ever talking about it."