Plainspoken Vesper Turquoise

English compound plain + spoken — past-participle of speak. As a color modifier, plainspoken implies a clear-and-direct-and-straightforward quality where the hue carries the visual register of unembellished-honest declaration. Sits at the crisp-and-honest end of the grid, parallel to candid and direct in usage.

Latin vespera, evening. As a color modifier, vesper implies an evening-prayer-and-dusk quality, the visual register of Roman-Catholic-and-Orthodox-Vespers evening-prayer-and-dusk hour-of-day evening-prayer-and-incense liturgical surfaces under Vespers-and-Compline ecclesiastical-evening candlelight. Sits at the modifier-and-time end of the grid, parallel to eve and knell in usage.

The hydrated copper-aluminum phosphate mined in Persia and the American Southwest for thousands of years — the firuze of Iran, the chalchihuitl of Mesoamerica, the heart of Pueblo and Navajo silverwork. The color refers to a fine Sleeping Beauty turquoise from Arizona: a saturated, slightly green-shifted blue with the slight matrix of host-rock veining. Brighter than persian, lighter than cerulean.