I'm Minyeon Fogarty and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language.

We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff.

Today in honor of Earth Day, we'll investigate how the word green came to be associated with

the environmental movement.

It wasn't a given.

And then in the second segment, we'll talk about the funnest word of them all.

The original Earth Day Proclamation in 1970 refers to our beautiful blue planet.

And the first Earth Day flag consisted of a NASA photo of the Earth on a dark blue background.

But the color of fields and forests prevailed.

And today, when we think of ecology and environmentalism, we think of green, not blue.

The connection of the color green to growing things is found in nature, of course.

And the word green has associations with verger, freshness, newness, health, and vitality

that are widespread among the Germanic languages, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

So in old and early middle English, we find forms of the word used to refer to the color

of living vegetation, grass, into grassy areas, or leafy trees.

The meaning was extended to refer especially to tender or unripe vegetation, and then

more generally.

The expression green cheese, for example, from the late 14th century refers to cheese that

still needs to be aged.

The notion of green as unripe provided the basis for its later extension to people.

So by the mid 16th century, green could be used to refer to immaturity, rawness, or

inexperience.

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