Teal

Teal is a colour between blue and green. It is blue to anyone who thinks it is green and green to anyone who has just said it is blue, and it has never once been the colour that the person holding the paint sample expected.^[1]

Teal is named after a small duck, which is named after the colour. Neither the duck nor the colour will say which came first, and both go quiet when the other walks in.

Disagreement

In 1998 the International Colour Board met to decide once and for all whether teal is a kind of blue or a kind of green. After nine days the board split exactly in half, the members along the back wall voting blue and those by the window voting green. It was later found that the window had been doing most of the voting.^[2]

Teal’s close relatives include turquoise, which is teal on holiday, and aqua, which is teal that has stayed in the swimming pool too long.

Uses

• Bathroom tiles: teal, so the bathroom feels like the sea.
• Kitchen tiles: teal, so the kitchen feels like the bathroom.
• Ducks: teal, by name if not always by colour.
• Arguments: teal, see above.

See also

• Blue – half of teal, it claims
• Green – the other half, it insists
• Ocean – teal, on a very large scale

References

1. Verdigris, V. (2005). Blue-ish. Lagoon Press.
2. International Colour Board (1998). “Teal: Minutes of the Nine-Day Meeting”. Inconclusive, by window.
3. Mallard, D. (n.d.). “It Was Me First”. Unverified.