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I was arguing with few of my friends about the different colors. So I said "Pink is fragile", and one of my friends started making fun of me. He didn't get the actual meaning of my sentence.

What I meant was that pink color symbolizes softness and can be destroyed easily and it does not have that impact. Was my way of expressing my opinion completely wrong? I don't want opinions on pink color, but the degree of correctness of the sentence.

It was a priority task in which we had to arrange different colors according to our perspective.

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    I don't understand why you might think pink can be destroyed more easily than any other colour, nor why this should have anything to do with how much "impact" pink has relative to other colours. By any normal standards, colour and fragility are orthogonal (unrelated) concepts, so even though it's theoretically "grammatical" to say The colour pink is fragile (note that Pink color is fragile simply isn't grammatical, regardless og UK/US spelling), it doesn't really make sense unless you explain the context more clearly. Commented Jul 20, 2017 at 16:58
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    Your meaning isn't clear to me even with your explanation. Normally, in English, one doesn't describe a color as 'fragile'; that term is used to describe physical objects that are easily damaged or destroyed. Also, one does not normally say "Pink color is ... ."; one merely says "Pink is ... .". Alternatively, "The color pink is ... ." would also be acceptable. Commented Jul 20, 2017 at 16:58
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    So, you would like to know a better way to express "that pink color symbolizes softness and things that can be destroyed easily and it does not have that impact"? I think that we're just as confused as your friend was by "Pink is fragile". Do you want to say something like "To me, pink means fragile"?
    – ColleenV
    Commented Jul 20, 2017 at 18:30
  • Exactly, I was trying to say that pink denotes delicacy and can easily be damaged. My sense was little poetic.
    – Divx
    Commented Jul 20, 2017 at 18:55
  • I went ahead and reopened this, because I think we could write an answer that explains why "Pink is fragile" doesn't work well and maybe explain wording that would express Divx's intent more clearly.
    – ColleenV
    Commented Jul 24, 2017 at 18:58

3 Answers 3

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If you are reporting your perspective (perception?) of pink, you can certainly say, "Pink is fragile." In the context of your perceptions, it will be understood as, "Pink represents fragility."

It will not be understood verbatim. Pink represents things that can be destroyed easily. The color pink itself, however, is no more easily destroyed than green.

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Fragile means "about to break." Since colors don't break the term fragile really doesn't make sense unless you establish some context that shows you mean it figuratively.

You can do that by saying something like "Pink { communicates | shows | expresses } fragility."

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I wouldn't say that it is right to call the colour "fragile" but I guess that you associated the colour pink with something delicate, tender ('that can be easily damaged'), beautiful and, perhaps, elusive. Nevertheless, I've never heard of fragile colours, but there are a lot of possible collocations:

fragile china
fragile beauty
fragile health
a fragile face

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  • Glidden has a "Fragile Pink" paint color. I think it's OK to say "fragile pink" to distinguish it from "fiesta pink" for example. The problem is when you try to say something like "pink is fragile" or "pink is tall".
    – ColleenV
    Commented Jul 24, 2017 at 22:04
  • The colour "fragile pink" doesn't belong to the words in common usage like "Fuchsia Pink" or "Navy Blue". In your example it's a part of the range of colours offered by the company. From this point of view, any word that has associations with a colour can be used for the purpose of naming (what is widely used by marketers). The initial post was just about the construction "pink is fragile" and, as it turned out, it had been said to express the associations.
    – Yulia
    Commented Jul 25, 2017 at 5:24

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