How do Americans judge the similarity and difference of colors?

In order to explore the ways in which American’s judge similarity and difference of colors, I interviewed two of my male coworkers, and two female friends. The males that participated in my project were over 40 years of age. They were both alumni of the University of Connecticut, and had both come to work for UConn some years later. The two females were current students at UConn. One was a pharmacy major, the other an English major.

I came upon my first problem right away. What exactly constitutes a color name? The obvious answers are “red, blue, green… etc” but what about “grass green”? Does putting a noun before the name of a primary color constitute its own color? If this were the case, there would be no end to the color names we use. “Coca-Cola Red”, “Laser-Jet Printer Gray”, “The Carpet in the Office I Work At Blue” would all be color names under this system. However, the participants did seem to have a point. “Sky blue” is certainly considered a co...