It seems to me like it'd have a Chinese-like pronunciation, that is Yin Min. Tan... | Hacker News

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		BossingAround on Jan 17, 2021 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: The first blue pigment discovered in 200 years is ... It seems to me like it'd have a Chinese-like pronunciation, that is Yin Min. Tangentially, as a non-native speaker, "ultramarine" has a fairly similar amount of information encoded in the name as "Yinmn"--pretty much zero. So, the two names ("ultramarine" vs "yinmn") are pretty much equivalent to eme, personally. Goes to show that naming things "properly" is difficult (I suspect it's impossible actually).

adrian_b on Jan 17, 2021 [–]

Originally, "ultramarine" meant something like "imported merchandise", i.e. something brought from the other side (ultra-) of the sea (-marine).

It provided the information that this is a foreign pigment that must be better than the lower-quality pigments produced locally (e.g. azurite).

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