You're listening to Away with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I'm Grant Barrett.

And I'm Martha Barnett.

You know how if you're in a supermarket and you're looking in the meat case, you'll often see what looks like fake grass or green fringe tucked between the steaks and the chops.

Yes.

And I always think to myself, you're not fooling anyone. That's not real. But yeah, it's got a zigzag pattern on it, right? And a vertical lines in parallel. Yeah, yeah, or a grid sort of. A grid. Yeah, and it sort of looks like, you know, fringy or, you know, like bank grass. Like finking shares have been taken to some green plastic. Perfect. Yes. Yes. Well, there is a name for those green strips. And they're not just

there for decoration. The story goes that in the 1950s, a grocery store chain had a problem.

And under their bright lights, those cuts of meat looked washed out and pale.

So the company brought in a color consultant who suggested that they paint the back of their

meat case green, and that's because green and red are complementary colors, so when they're next

to each other, the color of the meat pops visually and looks fresher.

And sure enough, it worked. And actually, for the same reason, butchers have been garnishing with parsley for years.

And in supermarkets today, the parsley has been replaced by these artificial parsley runners.

That's what they're called.

Parsley runners.

That sounds like somebody's like stage name or like drag name, Parsley runner.

Right.

Or their club that goes jogging on Saturdays.

Yeah, exactly.

And I learned about the work of that color consultant from a new book about the history of how dictionaries have come to define colors.

The book is called True Color and is by a dictionary editor whom we both know, Corey Stamper.

Yeah, Corey's been a lexicographer that is a maker of dictionaries for decades.

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