Color or Colored?

Colored. The eyes have color.

"along the lines" is how we say it 'round these parts.

And my part. Which is right opposite yours, Izz

tonten said:

He had different color eyes.
He had different colored eyes.

Click to expand...

Pedantically speaking, I think both are wrong. In the first, color acts as an adjective and suggests there is an alternative to eyes with color (i.e. having uncolored ones), so it should be hyphenated as in different-color eyes. Likewise with colored in the second. The alternative here might be to say he had differently colored eyes.

Just to confuse things further, either could mean having a blue eye and a green one (for example) or having mottled eyes. Perhaps he had eyes of a different color might get around that.

Kenn said:

Pedantically speaking, I think both are wrong. In the first, color acts as an adjective and suggests there is an alternative to eyes with color (i.e. having uncolored ones), so it should be hyphenated as in different-color eyes. Likewise with colored in the second. The alternative here might be to say he had differently colored eyes.

Click to expand...

I personally would hyphenate the term (and would use 'different-coloured'), but hyphens can be left out (per current style usage) when it's this obvious. I'm anal-retentive about hyphen use, but others aren't so much.

Kenn said:

Just to confuse things further, either could mean having a blue eye and a green one (for example) or having mottled eyes. Perhaps he had eyes of a different color might get around that.

Click to expand...

This change is even worse. The original versions are in common use (both with and without the '-ed') and most native English speakers will understand what's meant: each eye is a different colour.

'Eyes of a different colour' is totally vague and personally, I'd assume it meant 'different from normal' and then wonder which colour they are...purple? pink? orange? chartreuse?

I think that Kenn is right and both of those sentences about eyes are not all that good.

"His eyes were of different colors" might also work.

~~heterochromatic eyes.

Terie said:

This change is even worse. The original versions are in common use (both with and without the '-ed') and most native English speakers will understand what's meant: each eye is a different colour.

'Eyes of a different colour' is totally vague and personally, I'd assume it meant 'different from normal' and then wonder which colour they are...purple? pink? orange? chartreuse?

Click to expand...

I take your second point. However, your comment on usage by native English speakers doesn't follow logic. You can't define what is meant by the statements, because there isn't a unique interpretation. Therefore, you can't say that most people would understand them. You could say something along the lines that most people would assume what was meant (and I don't know whether that is true), but anyone would question it if it were a matter of importance. For example, if you were describing symptoms to a doctor over the telephone or reporting a crime to the police.

PS Good to see you spell colour correctly I made a conscious effort to write it color!

LynnKHollander said:

~~heterochromatic eyes.

Click to expand...

Sorry Lynn, you can get sectional heterochromatism, which is one eye and two colours. I don't know the specific name when each eye is a different colour.

I agree with Kenn here. The best way to write it is something like, "His left eye was blue, and his right eye was green."

Even if "different-colored" worked, it still doesn't give detail the read can, uh, see.

tonten said:

He had different color eyes.
He had different colored eyes.

Click to expand...

The second version sounded easier to me: He had different colored eyes.

Oh, I was thinking that his eyes had a color that was different from usual, like he actually had blue eyes but today was wearing brown-colored contact lenses. I guess the context will be important here as to how the reader is supposed to interpret that sentence.

Yeah, hyphens are pretty important to indicate meaning. Just yesterday I had a little chuckle about a sentence like this, that was meant as a funny little one-liner, but ended up (to me) being funny in a non-intended way:

English teachers put more thought into the meaning of novels than the actual author ever did.

My thought reading that was 'What about American teachers?'

~~and annular heterochromatism, where one or both eyes had rings of different colors. Heterchromatism is the basic phenomenon.

tonten said:

thanks!

I'm having trouble with 1 more sentence of mine.


I was thinking more of the lines of a nap.

I was thinking more on the lines of a nap.

Click to expand...

More on the lines of a nap, or as Americans say, Along the lines of a nap.

Show, don't tell. Love Kan and James' suggestions.

Jesus knows I hate to agree with JAR, but he nailed it here. Be specific.

caw

Jamesaritchie said:

I agree with Kenn here. The best way to write it is something like, "His left eye was blue, and his right eye was green."

Even if "different-colored" worked, it still doesn't give detail the read can, uh, see.

Click to expand...

I second this. Or third. Or wherever I fall in line.

Danika said:

I second this. Or third. Or wherever I fall in line.

Click to expand...

I third or fourth or whatever JAR's suggestion. It certainly heped me to understand the meaning of different colours (if that's what the OP meant in the first place) without thinking of the character as being a strange mutation.

I would argue that the phrase should be "differently-colored".

But maybe better is something like: "His eyes were of a different color than his mother's: one blue and the other an emerald green."

brianjanuary said:

I would argue that the phrase should be "differently-colored".

But maybe better is something like: "His eyes were of a different color than his mother's: one blue and the other an emerald green."

Click to expand...

Yes, even better.

tonten said:

Agh, I should have included the entire sentence when I posted it. Not sure why I chopped out some of the words, but it changed the context. The original sentence was:

"He had different color eyes than his mother"

or

"He had different colored eyes than his mother."

Click to expand...

I'm going to confuse things further by pointing out 'different than' is often frowned upon and 'different from' is less contentious. In Britain, 'different to' is also in common use. Personally, I think different than sounds strange.

Kenn said:

I'm going to confuse things further by pointing out 'different than' is often frowned upon and 'different from' is less contentious. In Britain, 'different to' is also in common use. Personally, I think different than sounds strange.

Click to expand...

I've seen it argued both ways.

He had different colored eyes than his mother [had].

Or

He had different colored eyes from [those of] his mother.

And some authorities seem to accept "different than" when used to compare a noun to a clause (rephrasing aside).

brianjanuary said:

I would argue that the phrase should be "differently-colored".

Click to expand...

Adverbs ending in ly don't need a hyphen.