English questions

[Travis B.]

Developers have cow-orkers.

[Travis B.]

Are the terms 'colleague' and 'coworker' entirely synonymous? Are there perhaps differences in connotation?

Yeah, it's class Doctors have colleagues, plumbers have co-workers. Someone in the middle, like developers, can have either.

As ever, there are nuances. You can talk about a grocery bagger's colleagues, but it's ironic or condescending. If you talk about a doctor's co-workers, it'd be likely taken as their secretaries and nurses.

Cow-orkers aside, if someone at my work (for those who don't already know, I'm a programmer by profession) spoke of "colleagues" I would think they had drunk too much of the human resources department Kool-Aid.

[Man in Space]

Plumbers can have colleagues too—for example, someone in the same line of work but a different shop/state/union.

[Linguoboy]

I'm currently reading an English-language novel in which a character is described as blond on one page and as red-haired on the next page. Is that just the author being sloppy, or can red-haired sometimes be seen as a subdivision of blond in the English language?

There is a type of hair colour called "strawberry blonde". Wiktionary describes it as "hair [that] appears blonde in dim light, but when exposed to sun or a bright light, the hair may assume a slight tinge of pink or red color". I rarely see this term used outside of popular literature from the mid-20th century and earlier.

[Raphael]

I'm currently reading an English-language novel in which a character is described as blond on one page and as red-haired on the next page. Is that just the author being sloppy, or can red-haired sometimes be seen as a subdivision of blond in the English language?

There is a type of hair colour called "strawberry blonde". Wiktionary describes it as "hair [that] appears blonde in dim light, but when exposed to sun or a bright light, the hair may assume a slight tinge of pink or red color". I rarely see this term used outside of popular literature from the mid-20th century and earlier.

Thank you. I don't think that applies here - the book is from the turn of this century.