Roses and pink

Bakewell, Derbyshire, 2011. Photo: Malcolm Wren
Bakewell, Derbyshire, 2011. Photo: Malcolm Wren

‘Die Rose ist rosa’: the rose is pink. Unlike so many other languages, English has a different word for the colour and the flower (except in the odd phrase, such as ‘looking through rose-tinted spectacles’). Rostand’s ‘Toutes les fleures!’ (set to music by Chabrier) reminds us that French is closer to German here: ‘But above all I am in love . . . with lilac lilacs and pink roses’ (‘Mais surtout, surtout, je suis amoureux / . . . / Des lilas lilas / Et des roses roses’).

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