Chartreuse

an ancient crayola cunundrum(sp)

i think you put the majority color first

Although the dictionary.com entry for yellow green says: "a shade of green tinged with yellow."

They are SOO wrong!

oh man! I used to have this debate with a classmate in high school. Remember Dave Kooyenga, Spudart? He claimed tennis balls were green. I said they were yellow.

When you purchase a can of tennis balls, they are most certainly yellow! Go to Target or Sportmart and check it out for yourself. YELLOW!

However, after extended use, the tennis balls will turn into a shade of yellow green or perhaps green yellow.

Yes, I remember David Kooyenga debating that item. However, the debate here is not whether tennis balls are green or yellow. We all know that they are primarily yellow with a little bit of green. The question is the linguistics of how to describe that color.

The primary color should come before the secondary color. If the item in question is more yellow than green then the color is "yellow-green". Why in the world would anyone say it the other way around? That simply doesn't make any sense.

My original answer was to point out that over time many colors have been given their own name, like chartreuse for "yellow-green" and aquamarine for "green-blue".

hey, spudart, remember when we used to hit tennis balls at cars on route 83 during tennis practice?

It's funny that I'm in Elmhurst now and Route 83 runs through Elmhurst.

semi trucks were alway the easiest target. One time i think someone in a car actually pulled into the parking lot and complained. We just said that we all really stink at tennis.

Ok, the second word is the main colour. The first word is the adjective of the main adjective, I forget what the proper word for that is. To see what I mean, saying 'green yellow', is just a simpler, or less silly sounding way of saying 'greenish yellow' or 'greeny yellow'. You see? without the 'ish' or 'y' at the end it still means the same thing, the first word is saying the second word is slightly that colour. Ok, I'll shut up now, oh, and I'll just add that tennis balls are yellow, their not green at all. :)

I've debated for the past 2 weeks of scool, my teacher says it yellow, but another teacher insists its green. Clearly you can tell in YELLOW though:)ha.AND THIS PROVES IT. thanks everyone who said it was yellow.Your correct.

Bianca has convinced me

Woot! :) hehe, after I found this site the first time I went and asked everyone at school and they all said primary colour first, and no one understood my excellent reasoning :P
Yay for tom :)

I am an artist, and am taking color theory and chemistry and artists' colors, and the technical term for a color with both yellow and green in it is yellow-green, since yellow is the primary color and green is the secondary color on the color wheel. I was just doing some research for homework and found this question, so I decided to help you out. Have a great day! :D

i just had an argument with a housemate as to the colour of tennis balls. i say they are green. two of my housemates say they are yellow (fools) and one agrees with me. i'd say my initial reaction to a tennis ball is 'this is a green thing that is also yellowy' so i'd say yellowy green.

i googled 'tennis ball colour' to prove my housmates wrong, though it seems that the controversy is more widespread! anyone studied Locke? this seems a good counterexaple to objective property of colour...

It has to do with the color wheel:

Primary colors come first, Secondary colors come second.

Primary= Yellow, Blue, Red

Secondary= Green, Purple, Orange

So, blue-green is an example of a color between blue and green on the wheel. Or in the case of a tennis ball: Yellow Green.

More specifically and in this case most likely: If it is placed between a secondary color, like Yellow-green and a primary like Yellow: the order is Primary-Secondary-Primary

As in: the tennis ball is Yellow-Green-Yellow. Clunky, but that's the system.

(I teach color theory)

Karen, this is GREAT information. Thank you so much!