Color Me Purple Part 5: Shades in Idioms Quiz

Answer: Hippies

Although "purple patch" and "purple prose" meant one and the same thing - elaborate and overly decorated writing - until the 20th century rolled around, the term "purple patch" had evolved by then to refer to a time of great prosperity or creativity in a person's life. Then, however, "purple patch" took on a different meaning once more in the 1960s when hippies began wearing purple velvet clothing, or simply sewed purple patches onto jeans to make them appear even more appealing. Jimi Hendrix was the very epitome of the purple patch movement at this stage, so much so that manufacturers even created a dye named after him. This was known as the Hendrix Purple.

Question and additional information supplied by Creedy.

Answer: Byzantine

"Born in (to) the purple" is the literal translation of the Latinized Greek word "porphyrogenitus". The modern English word "purple" comes from the Latin "purpura", which in turn derives from the Greek "porphyra". In the Byzantine Empire, "porphyrogenitus" was the honorific title given to a son or daughter born after their father had become emperor, and was consequently entitled to wear garments dyed with Tyrian purple, the extremely expensive dye obtained from the Murex sea snail. In modern English, this idiom is applied to children born to socially prominent parents, not necessarily royals or aristocrats.

Question and additional information supplied by LadyNym.

Answer: Purple prose

It is said that the Roman poet Horace came up with the term "purple prose" to describe writing that was heavy in passages such as this one, full of too many adjectives and flowery images, when a simple "The night was dark. The day had been quite sunny," would suffice. The reference was to over-embellishment, as some folk did by sewing purple patches to their clothing to pretend to royal status. In the writer's case, it is often an attempt to fill space with meaningless words.

Question and additional information supplied by spanishliz.

Answer: A perfect job candidate

First appearing in the early 2000s, the term "purple squirrel" describes the job candidate who is a perfect match for the job description--years of service, skills, education, etc. For instance, imagine the candidate who has three Master's degrees, speaks seven languages, has 25 years of experience in the industry, is under 30, and will work for minimum wage. While a perfect candidate might be able to assume multiple roles in the company and necessitate the hiring of fewer workers, a company might be wasting time/resources when involved in an excessively long search for a perfect candidate that might be as rare as a purple squirrel.

Question and additional information supplied by bernie73.

Answer: Bury them

As well as preparing a person for burial, to lay something/someone out in lavender can mean 'to show something/someone in the best possible light', or 'beat them up', as women would beat freshly washed laundry with the plant to make their clothes smell nice. In the case I used, it's because lavender is a plant with a particularly strong smell, and the saying refers to the practice of strewing a dead body with lavender and other strong-smelling herbs and/or plants to mask the smell. The first known use of the phrase in this context is in a 1926 book review, which refers to a dead family being 'laid out in lavender'.

Question and additional information supplied by Kankurette.

Answer: Purple Kush

Purple Kush is, by the account of many recreational and medicinal marijuana users, one of the most popular strains of the plant ever brought to the market.

Because it's generally not an exact science, the specifics of what was Purple Kush, or some other strain of marijuana with a purple color weren't well known for decades. As science improved and marijuana use became more mainstream, the various strains were more exact in their creation.

The song "Purple Haze" was released in 1970 on an album based on the music of Woodstock from 1969. Jimi Hendrix had been performing the song in concert since at least 1967.

Decades after the song was released, a strain of marijuana bearing the same name was also released.

Question and additional information supplied by Shadowmyst2004.

Answer: Shrinking violet

The term shrinking violet seems to have come into use in the early 1800s. Leigh Hunt used the term to describe the plant in 1820. In 1825 James Gates Percival used the phrase in his poem "The Perpetual Youth of Nature" published in the "United States Literary Gazette".

Speculation is that the term reflected that the wild violet flowers are mostly hidden under the leaves.

Question and additional information supplied by mlcmlc

Answer: Fig

"It's not worth a fig" and "I don't care a fig" are euphemisms with a shady history. The word "fig" as both a fruit and a trifling thing entered Middle English from the Old French 'figue', ultimately from the Latin 'ficus'. The insulting sense in English dates from the 1570s ("A fig for..."), from Greek and Italian uses of their "fig" words for "vulva", as this how a ripe fig appears when sliced open. "Showing the fig" was an inflammatory gesture made by sticking the thumb between two fingers to resemble a fig, the equivalent of "flipping the bird". This is carried over in the word "sycophant" from the Greek 'sykon' ("fig") and 'phainen' ("to show"). A 'sykophantes' originally referred to devotees who "showed the fig" at the behest of ancient Greek politicians, who could thereby feign an aloof and virtuous dignity. By the 1570s, "sycophant" had acquired in English the modern sense of "servile flatterer".

Question and additional information supplied by gracious1.

Answer: A state where similar support exists for both major parties

Following the United States presidential elections in the year 2000, colors were applied to each state according to the levels of support received from each of the major parties.

States where the electorate predominantly voted for the Republican Party were labelled red states, whilst the Democratic Party's 'safe states' were dubbed blue states. States where both major parties received strong but similar support, known as swing states, are also now referred to as purple states.

Question and additional information supplied by moonraker2

Answer: An English lord

This (generally rather derogatory) phrase is used, primarily in the United Kingdom, to describe someone speaking with the accent traditionally associated with upper-class members of British society. Also called Received Pronunciation (RP) English, it is defined by the OED as being the accent of the south of England, but is heard throughout the country, and is associated with wealth, education and power. The phrase is most commonly used to suggest that a parvenue, who does not actually belong to the aristocracy, is putting on airs, and trying to act above their station.

Question and additional information supplied by looney_tunes