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That colour 'alliance': red to brown; black to blue, I always suspected for being the reason brown and blue were chosen in the first place
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The choice of colours for a European standard was complicated by the variety of different systems in use at the time. Red, for example, meant live in the UK, neutral in Holland and earth in Germany. Black was almost universally used as live except in UK- derived systems where it was neutral. Therefore neither of these colours was a good contender for standardisation. Where already in use, brown and blue had generally consistent meanings, were easy to implement as stable pigments, and were not generally rendered indistinguishable by colour-blindness. Brown had been earth in pre-war UK but long since superseded by green.