Learn English color expressions to talk about situations & emotions

Hmm, hmm, this is really cool.

Hi. James from engVid.

Right now I'm kind of tickled pink about the information I just got from this.

It's on answers while you sleep, lucid dreaming.

Why am I telling you all this?

Well, today I want to tell you how in English...

Or show you in English how we use colours to talk about your mood or your emotions.

All right?

I'm sure in your own culture you use colour when you talk about something to describe

how someone is feeling.

And we have...

I've got six for you, and I'm going to give you basically what they mean, and I'm going

to give you some idioms that go with it.

Later on I'm going to also do for you something a little else, I'll show you how we use colours

to talk about behaviour, so not just how you think or feel, but how you act.

Okay?

Give you a couple of those, and then, of course, we'll have our quiz.

So, you ready?

Let's go to the board.

"How are you feeling today?"

Well, E, how are you feeling?

You're feeling a little flushed, a little blue in the face?

No?

A little red in the face?

Let's go to the board and find out what these colours are.

So, let's start with the colour that contains everything, white.

When you are white it means you are afraid, scared.

Someone might say: "You're as white as a sheet."

The reason why they said that is because usually when we're afraid all of the blood goes from

your body, from your hands and your feet to your heart so you can run faster if you need

to escape.

So your colour gets lighter.

It doesn't matter what colour you are, funny enough, you get lighter.

You can see it in some colour...

People of different colours more, but generally put, it means your colour is not there because

the blood is not there, you must be afraid.

So you're as white as a sheet, like a ghost.

Okay?

Let's go to the next colour, so we're going a little darker here, yellow.

Now, I've gots a big belly.

When somebody calls you a yellow belly they're saying: "You're a coward."

It means you're weak, you're afraid.

Now, this one you're afraid because something scared you.

When you're a yellow belly, you're always afraid like a little mouse, you don't want

to get into a fight or trouble, you might get hurt.

So it means I can never depend on you when the situation is bad because you're too afraid

to help.

So, while being white means you're afraid of something that just happened, something

has scared you, this one means you have no strength.

You're the opposite of strong, you're weak.

You're a coward, you're afraid of being hurt.

Let's go to red.

Now, there are two types of red.

Sometimes when people are turning red they are angry, like the Hulk.

Except the Hulk turns green and we're not turning green.

But when you see them getting...

Their head starts getting redder and redder or darker in colour, usually what that means

is the blood is rushing to their face.

Now, in doing that, there are two meanings.

The first one is angry.

They're like: "[Breathes heavily]".

And the face gets redder and redder.

You go: "I think they're angry."

And we will say: "He's red in the face."

Angry, you can see it.

You can see the blood and the heat.

The second is turning red as in embarrassment.

This is funny because in this case the blood comes to the face but it's from embarrassment.

You're like: "Oh.

My underwear is showing.

Oh.

I'm embarrassed", and your face gets red.

Okay?

So one is angry and you can almost feel the heat off of them, and the other one is: "Oh",

embarrassment, shame.

Okay?

So, I'm telling you this because if you hear these two things, like turning red does not

mean getting angry.

Red in the face is angry, but this one, if someone says you're turning red, it means

you've gone from being comfortable to being ashamed.

Right?

Or embarrassed of what has happened.

Let's go to pink.

I said to you before I was tickled pink.

When you tickle somebody, they: "[Laughs]", they laugh.

Okay?

So, tickling someone pink means to make them happy.

So if someone's tickled pink to meet you, it means they're happy to meet you.

Because when we say, like, someone's in the pink of health, it's happy and healthy.

It's good.

It's a good thing.

And you might notice, like, pink bubbles, we use it for little girls, and happiness

is pink, pink, pink, so you're tickled pink.

What about green?

Well, green is the colour of envy, envy or jealousy.

These emotions are basically...

They are different.

Okay.

When you envy someone you want what they have.

So if I have a pen, you want a pen, too.

I'm envious of you.

So if you have a good job, they want a good job as well.

If you have a lovely husband or wife, they want a husband or wife as well.

Jealous is different.

Dunh-dunh-dunh-dunh.

Jealousy is when you want the exact thing that person has.

So if you have a good wife, they don't want their own, they want yours.

If they're jealous of your house or car, they don't want to have their own, they want yours.

So you can understand this is probably like a creature, a monster, not a nice person,

so we say things like: "Green-eyed monster", because they're looking at your stuff and

saying: "I want it.

I want it.

I want it."

Or: "Green with envy."

They're green because they want your stuff.

All right?

But this one here really tells you, gives you an idea of monster, being that what they

want is yours or something similar you have, so they don't seem like your friends, they

seem more like a monster to you.

Okay?

Green-eyed monster.

Blue.

Blue, the sky is blue which is a nice colour.

But funny enough, when somebody says: "Are you feeling blue?" or "You look a little blue",

we don't mean the sky which is happy and good.

We mean you feel down and sad, and not good.

So on many songs...

We actually have a genre or style of songs called "The Blues" where it's very sad music.

My dog just died, and I lost my job.

I got me the blues.

Sad, right?

Yeah, exactly.

But sometimes also you're talking to somebody and they're just not listening to you, and

you're really, really trying, and you think I'm going to be red in the face, no.

I'm going to be blue in the face because, like, all my oxygen is gone.

I've used all of it.

[Pants] I can't talk anymore.

I'm just out of breath because you're just not listening.

So I'm not red as in angry, I'm exhausted because I have nothing left because you're

making me blue in the face, I've been talking until I was blue in the face.

Okay?

So to talk until you're blue in the face means you can talk and lose all your oxygen, but

it has no effect in the situation.

And...

Oh my gosh, we're back up to white, I'm afraid.

Pa-dum-dum.

Anyway.

So what I want to do from here is...

Now, I've told you or given you some...

Some colours, well, six to be exact, I've given you what they mean and represent, and

some idioms that we use to talk about these colours in conversation to talk about someone's

emotional state or their mood.

I'm going to come back in a second, I'm going to give you some other colours and tell you

how that's behaviour.

So it's not colours for emotion, but the behaviour someone is using.

So isn't this fun?

When you were in kindergarten or grade school you learned about colours, now we're using

them for emotions.

I hope you're going to be tickled pink when we get back.

Okay, we're back, and time to talk about behaviour because we've talked about emotions, but emotions

are here or here, and behaviour is what you do-okay?-or your actions.

So, if someone says you're green, they go, you know: "Mr. E's really green at the...

He's green", they usually mean you're new, you have never done this before, you've never

done this action.

It's not emotion.

It means you're new at the job or new at the position, so you're green.

It's like flowers, before a flower gets colour, the whole thing is green.

And then after when the flower opens up like a rose, it will start going green, green,

green, then the bulb, the top part will open, and a colour will come.

But before that, it's new until it opens, then it's green.

Red, to get caught red-handed...

If you get caught red-handed it means you're doing something at this moment and someone

catches you.

So if you were stealing money from someone and you put your hand in, they would catch

you red-handed.

All right?

So, red would probably go with the embarrassment that we talked about, emotionally you'd be

embarrassed because you were caught red-handed.

Hot, right in the situation.

Okay?

And brown, brown nose.

Okay, how do I explain?

You know your bum-bum, that bum-bum down there?

Well, you know, you go number two...

There's number one and number two.

Well, number two comes there.

If somebody puts their nose in there it's going to become brown.

Okay?

So when we say you are a brown noser, it means you kiss people's bums or their butts.

You brown nose, you kiss it in order to get a better job, or permission, or someone would

like you.

So, if there's a girl that you like and you're always saying: "You're so pretty, and so nice,

and so smart.

Everything you do is magic", you're brown nosing, meaning you're kissing her on the

butt so that she will like you to give you something nice.

Now, usually this happens at work.

You'll say some guy's a brown noser, you're like: "Look at that brown noser over there.

Look at him talk to the boss.

Kissing the boss's bum because he wants to get the job."

Now, "brown nosing", we're generally trying to say that your work isn't good enough for

you to get it, so when you brown nose you feel that your work isn't good enough so you

try to say good things in order to get the boss or someone to like you more because you

really don't believe in your own skills.

Because we usually say over here, if you're good enough you don't need to brown nose.

Okay?

So, these are three uses of colour to talk about behaviour.

All right?

As opposed to just talking about the emotions.

But just to test that you understand what I meant when I did my little chart, I'm going

to give you a test of: Match the colours-ours-ours-ours-ours.

They spend a lot of money on sound effects here, so, that's where that's from.

Okay.

"Peter was tickled __________ at the promotion."

[Clicks tongue] What do you think it was?

"Peter was tickled", let me see...

"pink". Oh, sorry, I don't think you care about c's.

"Peter was tickled pink", okay?

"Peter was tickled pink at the promotion."

And pink means happy, so Peter was happy he got the promotion.

Good for you.

Okay.

"Will turned __________ as a sheet when he heard the gunshot."

Yeah, that would scare me, too.

And when you're scared...

Remember I said all the blood leaves your face so you look white?

So you're as white as a sheet.

Right?

So, like, oo, like ghost, bang, colour goes, you turn white from a gunshot.

What about Greg?

"Greg was __________ with envy when he saw Josh's new Mercedes."

What a beautiful car.

I wish I had one.

That's right, green.

He was green with envy.

I should have done this in different colours, it would have been so much more impressive.

Can you imagine if this was green and that was pink?

But I don't have those colours.

But I do have green, so hold on a second.

[Whistles] This is a commercial break.

Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.

There.

Like I said, we spare no expense here at the engVid Production Company, so you can get

everything you want.

Okay?

So I've got to figure out a couple more so you don't know just yet.

I'm hiding these colours so you'll have to see after.

Now, we know he was green with envy.

What about Bobby?

"Bobby was feeling __________ in the face after he tried to convince the girl to date him."

Oh, that's a plane bringing in the answer.

See? Here it comes. It's dropping. Thank you.

Thanks a lot.

Dropped in from the sky.

Like I said, spare no expense, airplanes delivering markers for your convenience.

He was blue in the face.

Now, I know there're some of you out there, going...

Out there, saying: "Hey, James, I could have said: "red in the face", but remember "red

in the face" would be angry.

Now, if you're trying to convince somebody, you're going to be talking to them.

Remember we talked about exhausted?

If you're angry at a girl for not wanting to date you, I think she doesn't want to date

you even more now.

You've given her one more reason to say: "No, not you.

You're too angry."

But "blue in the face" would mean he's like: "Come on, please, please.

I'll take you to dinner.

Please. McDonald's. Please? I'll pay. Please? Please?"

He's getting exhausted, and she's like: "No.

No. No. No. No. No. No."

So he talks until he's blue in the face, but it didn't change her mind and he was exhausted.

Okay?

Now, how about the last one, what's this one?

"Rose was __________ with embarrassment because her underwear was showing."

- Oo, oo. - Rosey, Rosey, Rosey.

Now, I'm going to stop you for a second here because some of you are smart, and you're

thinking: "Roses are usually what colour, pink?"

Wrong.

Roses are red, and that colour is here.

Roses are red, and she was embarrassed.

Remember I said red can be angry but it can also be embarrassed?

So if your underwear was showing you'd be embarrassed.

Oh, that's terrible. Shameful.

And your underwear, your face would be red.

So you've noticed we've got: "Peter was tickled pink", p to P. "Will turned white", W to w,

"Greg was green", G to g.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you get it.

Okay, I don't have to go...

We call that alliteration.

I'm trying to teach you another technique, which is how you can take one piece of information

that you know, and if you do it just the right way, you can use it to remember another piece

of information.

In this case we started with the P to the p, and if you write a sentence with that,

Paul, pink, tickled pink, you'll notice...

Or Paulettes or whatever, that you will remember this idiom because you'll have something to

help you. Cool, huh? We do try.

I give you a little bit, and I give you a little more, and you keep taking and taking.

Anyway, listen, I hope you were tickled pink by this lesson.

I am not embarrassed by my actions on this particular video, nor will I ever be, but

I do have to get going unfortunately.

And you know that I love you.

I'm not trying to brown nose right now.

I do.

But I got to go, so before I go I just want to give you a quick message to make sure you

subscribe somewhere around here.

And go to engVid, which is www.eng as in English, vid as in video.com ( www.engvid.com ) where

you can do the test that comes with this, and meet some of the other fabulous teachers

that I work with.

Anyway, of course it's been fun.

Oh, here comes that plane again.

It was fun. Bye. I got to go.

Like I said, we spare no expenses.

I'm flying out of here.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ciao.