What color is this block?

What color is the block above?

• Is it black?
• or not black?

Okay, that one was easy. How about is it

• Green
• Yellow
• Blue
• White?

Stay with me here, is it

• dark blue
• medium blue
• light blue
• blue?

Good. Now finally, is it

• air force blue
• ultramarine
• denim
• Celeste
• Egyptian blue
• electric blue
• cobalt?

If you guessed 'cobalt', you are correct.

As we saw from this example, as we increased our vocabulary choices we were able to increase the accuracy of our description of the block.

While 'not black' is technically true, it isn't very accurate. And 'dark blue' or 'medium blue' might be more descriptive than 'not black', it still isn't very accurate. Cobalt is the most accurate description for the color, but it required us to have the necessary vocabulary in order to describe it precisely.

Have you worked on your vocabulary recently?