Thursday, February 03, 2011

Bob and Emily Talk IX

Emily is playing Colorku. This is an extremely cool game that Bob got her for Christmas a few years back. Think: "tactile-ly/visually- pleasing Sudoku." It's a wooden grid with indentations that hold wooden marbles painted in pretty colors. It comes with a deck of cards that indicate "playing boards" that tell you where to place different marbles to create puzzles of varying difficulty. Then it's played just like Sudoku, only with colors instead of numbers.

Bob (who has never done a Sudoku puzzle): So, tell me, what is it you're trying to do again?

Emily: Put all the marbles on the board so that no row, column, or segment has more than one marble of each color.

Bob (after studying the board for a minute): Oh, so you mean (indicating a spot), you could put a purple one here, maybe?

Emily (surveying the spot he suggests): Maybe. Which color?

Bob points to a marble.

Emily (surveying it some more): Oh yeah, I think a grape one can go there. And if a grape one goes there, the eggshell one can go here. (She puts the marbles in their places.)

Bob: The what?

Emily: The eggshell.

Bob: You mean light blue. And try putting a light green one here.

Emily: Ooo, yes. You're good at this. And if that apple one goes there, then the other apple one can go here.

Bob: But I don't see where you're going to put the light purple one in that row.

Emily: Oh, the periwinkle can go here, see? And then, that means the pine one has to go here.

Bob: Periwinkle?

Emily: Yes. I know it looks like we've got a lot of them left, but don't worry. They'll all fall into place, especially if we figure out where those last two pine ones go, which shouldn't be too hard to do now.

Bob: Pine? (Emily picks up a marble.) Oh, you mean dark green.

Question: When did Bob and Emily become such male and female stereotypes when it comes to color recognition and naming? More importantly: when did Emily start speaking like a J. Crew catalog?

6 comments:

Stefanie said...

This was a bit scary with your J. Crew color words. But very funny too!

Danny said...

Love it! A compilation of your talks with Bob could replace the entire text of "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" and save people 25 dollars!

Smithereens said...

You should not disparage JCrew's virtue of teaching colors. I learnt much English vocab thanks to these guys. Yet, perhaps you should switch to LLBean, JCPenney or other big writers for more! LOL

Emily Barton said...

Stef, I would say VERY scary. I must examine my vocabulary (or my catalog skimming habits).

Danny, maybe I ought to compile them all and start charging $25?

Smithereens, do you think some of those colors came from L.L. Bean? I peruse their catalogs quite often, too...

litlove said...

I like your terms better than the boring orthodox ones. You must have Russian blood in there; in Russia, light blue and dark blue are considered completely different colors, and for all I know, have wildly differing names.

Emily Barton said...

Litlove, I've always suspected I must have some Russian blood in me.