eduforum.co.uk |

Blue has been culturally endowed with many different meanings. In English, blue represents the emotion of sadness, one would say “She was feeling a bit blue”, for example. In German, the colour refers to being drunk, an interesting historical pairing. As in the ancient world, urine would be used to dye cloth blue with indigo or woad. Another understandable reason why blue would be paired with sadness is because it is a colour that can be used in relation to rain, which is understood to trigger depressive moods.

Yet strangely, blue can often represent the very opposite and can be associated with optimism and happiness. Such emotions are heightened on days when the weather is good, when there are blue skies. Clear days with blue skies have been associated with happiness for hundreds of years.

Blue is also used in the West to represent the male gender in contrast to the pink utilized for females. This was a strange reversal, as until the early 1900s, blue was a colour for girls instead. As gu10 led’s have no colour, one cannot determine their gender!