What Shade Of E11 Is This One?

@51studebaker, I'm a bit taken aback by your suggestion that I leave over a disagreement over the word "shade."

Most folks here are interested in learning, calling those who care about learning or using correct terminology 'silly' is not helpful or productive. There is no rule that people use the correct terminology here. Nor were you are anyone else criticized for using the incorrect terminology. The correct terminology was posted for those who want to learn and be accurate.

Many people use the term 'mint' to describe anything that is in good condition; they have no idea that to those in our hobby it means something different. We have several threads where an eBay listing are posted and the non-hobbyist lister is criticized for calling a used stamp 'mint' when they really were describing the condition of the stamp. In my opinion using the correct terminology helps avoid confusion. But if you do not want to use the correct terminology then have at it, you are 'allowed' your opinion here just as I am 'allowed' to post my opinion. But calling others 'silly' for wanting to teach or learn is not going to fly with me.
Don

While he may have called you a pedant, he technically did not call you silly. I think the "silly" part, if there is one, is trying to force 98% of us to conform to the other 2%. Furthermore, if this community is all about accuracy and learning, why does it seem like constant adulation is the real currency here?

Who is "trying to force 98% of us to conform to the other 2%"?
Don

That's fair. I didn't intend to offend anyone, and my reply was a response to the "piling on" after the point was made. Your explanation of color was helpful. As someone who enjoys the color variety of stamps, I like to participate in these threads. I do feel like straigthforward questions on "what color is this stamp?" always have the discussion leading to lectures (and I don't use that word pejoratively) about how hard it is to evaluate colors and scans and lighting and language and even how individuals perceive color are all factors that make it hard to do. That's all fine, but despite all that, how do we help each other with the actual question at hand? I don't think giving up on color because it is hard is the right approach.

Piling on and suggesting that the OP should change the original post to use the word "hue" instead of "shade" is not helpful. We all know that philatelists use the word, "shade" to mean color varieties even if one definition of "shade" is a color with black added to it. "Shade," meaning small color variations is a dictionary definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shade

And I guess I'm as pedantic as anyone else since I'm on one side of a disagreement about the definition of a word.

I have never found an answer to the question of why Scott "officially" recognizes some color differences and ignores others. Usually there is an attendant value difference and so it matters in more ways than one in the stamp market. I have assumed the reason is that a particular color/shade/hue was documented as being intentionally produced by the printing entity and yet I can never find confirmation of that. And so it comes full circle to the question of why one gets recognized and sometimes assigned a large premium and another is just considered "different".