Describes the stimulus and the response.
Comment on Cave Bears
otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months agoIn fact, the word “brown” is the morph of the original word for bear. Whatever humans used for brown was overshadowed long ago by the very experience of bear itself and the color became a permanent warning against that thing that the single most terrifying brown in existence.
mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
sepia_sempervirens@yiffit.net 10 months ago
Well, maybe. There’s also a competing hypothesis that says it’s the other way around, i.e. “bear” is derived from “brown”; the old word for “bear” became taboo, possibility for fear that speaking the beast’s name would summon it. Either way, the fear of bears has certainly left a mark on the Germanic languages.