# What colour (of) ...? [hat / iPhone]



## Elaine Koh

*Jane bought a red hat.*
 
If I want to ask the colour of the hat, which below question is correct?  If none, how do I ask the question?
 
*What colour hat did Jane buy?*
*What colour is the hat that Jane bought?*
** 
*Thanks a lot.*


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## Violo*

Maybe: which is the colour of Jane's hat?


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## charisma_classic

Either of your options are correct.

"Which is the colour of Jane's hat?" is not correct - this question should be asked as "What color is Jane's hat/What is the color of Jane's hat?"


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## johndot

In my opinion the most usual way of phrasing the question would be, “What colour hat did Jane buy?”


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## Aardvark01

Elaine Koh said:


> *Jane bought a red hat.*
> 
> If I want to ask the colour of the hat, which below question is correct? If none, how do I ask the question?
> 
> *1. What colour hat did Jane buy?*
> *2. What colour is the hat that Jane bought?*
> 
> *Thanks a lot.*


 Both are grammatically correct.
I would teach English students to use 2. before introducing them to the use of the auxiliary verb 'do' ('did' in 1.).
As a native speaker I would use 1. in common speech because it is more concise.


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## Elaine Koh

Many thanks to all of your for your help.


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## Wilma_Sweden

Aardvark01 said:


> As a native speaker I would use 1. in common speech because it is more concise.


Concise, yes, but it looks 'chopped off' - like something is missing, at least to a non-native speaker. What is the pattern? Is it like 'colour [of] hat', with an implied 'of'?

/Wilma


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## Dimcl

Aardvark01 said:


> As a native speaker I would use 1. in common speech because it is more concise.


 
Are we perhaps into a BE/AE/CaE difference again?  As a native-speaker, I would never say this.  If I were to use this structure, I would say, as Wilma indicated, "What colour *of* hat did Jane buy?"  In fact, "What colour hat did Jane buy?" sounds grammatically incorrect to me.  Isn't that the same as saying "What type hat did Jane buy?" or "What shape hat did Jane buy?"  All sound ungrammatical to me.


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## Loob

Maybe there is a varietal difference here.

For me "what colour hat did Jane buy?" is unexceptional.


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## Wilma_Sweden

Dimcl said:


> Are we perhaps into a BE/AE/CaE difference again?


Probably, since all votes *for* 'what colour hat' were BE, and this type of construction would be every bit as hard to grasp as the do-construction for a non-native student. That's why I was wondering about the pattern, i.e. other contexts with a similar construction.

/Wilma


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## kitenok

I think the Americans were just abstaining because we instinctively look the other way when we see _color_ spelled as _colour. _I would happily ask "what color hat...?" 

But that hasn't stopped me from wondering about the grammar behind it as I've followed this thread. The phrase "what color" does seem to behave as an interrogative adjective unto itself here, doesn't it? This had never occurred to me before...


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## Cagey

Those whose writing appears on Google seem to strongly favor the version without "_of_".  The results divided by the spelling of _colour/color:_
10  "what colour of hat" 
184 "what colour hat" 

40  "what color of hat" 
425  "what color hat" ​ (These are the numbers of citations I found when I did the searches and clicked to the last citation.  If you click on a link, Google will do another search, so your results may be different.)


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## panjandrum

Frantic BE-speaker waving from the back corner.
_What colour hat ...!!!!_
I would never hear that question without thinking "non-native speaker".
Whether non-native is AE or non-English-native I don't know, now.
I always assumed "What colour hat ..." was an AE construction, but it appears not, from this thread.


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## Dimcl

Cagey said:


> Those whose writing appears on Google seem to strongly favor the version without "_of_". The results divided by the spelling of _colour/color:_
> 10 "what colour of hat"
> 184 "what colour hat"
> 
> 40 "what color of hat"
> 425 "what color hat" ​(These are the numbers of citations I found when I did the searches and clicked to the last citation. If you click on a link, Google will do another search, so your results may be different.)


 
Dr. Google is not discriminatory.  I guess I just don't understand the grammar of "what colour hat".  To me, that implies the acceptability of many other constructions such as "What type shoes did you buy?" or "What kind house do you live in?"  Are these okay or is it just "what colour" that works like this?


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## Dimcl

panjandrum said:


> Frantic BE-speaker waving from the back corner.
> _What colour hat ...!!!!_
> I would never hear that question without thinking "non-native speaker".
> Whether non-native is AE or non-English-native I don't know, now.
> I always assumed "What colour hat ..." was an AE construction, but it appears not, from this thread.


 
I'm glad that you waved, Panj.  I'm often out in left field and it's nice to know I'm not alone.


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## Aardvark01

Similar examples of this construct would be:

Question: What size of shoe do you wear?
Answer: Eleven
Question: What colour of eyes do you have?
Answer: Blue
Q: What style *(of =optional) *clothing do you prefer?
A: Blue shirt and faded jeans, to go with my eyes.

The last Question requires an answer that is more than a single, objective word or phrase. But that doesn't quite work as a rule. I need to give more thought to it as I've not addressed this question before. 

In *common speech* I'd be happy with: 'what shape hat is she wearing'  predicting a simple answer like: 'tall','peaked' or 'broad rimmed'. But then a longer answer would not surprise me: 'Boat shaped with lace and cherries on top and Morris dancers around the rim...'


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## Cagey

Dimcl said:


> To me, that implies the acceptability of many other constructions such as "What type shoes did you buy?" or "What kind house do you live in?"  Are these okay or is it just "what colour" that works like this?



The use without "of" seems to depend on the word.  For instance, the following shows the same preference, but to a lesser degree._"What _flavour_ ice cream_" vs. _"flavour of_" gets 238/112. 
"What flavor ice cream"  vs. "flavor of" gets 711/459.​At least in these examples, the proportions do not depend on dialect, if the spelling reflects dialect. 

Words like "type" and "kind" are not often used without 'of'.  
For instance, the results for "what type of movie" vs. "what type movie" are 618/ 26.


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## Wilma_Sweden

Aardvark01 said:


> Similar examples of this construct would be:
> 
> Question: What size of shoe do you wear?
> Answer: Eleven
> Question: What colour of eyes do you have?
> Answer: Blue
> Q: What style *(of =optional) *clothing do you prefer?
> A: Blue shirt and faded jeans, to go with my eyes.
> 
> The last Question requires an answer that is more than a single, objective word or phrase. But that doesn't quite work as a rule. I need to give more thought to it as I've not addressed this question before.
> 
> In *common speech* I'd be happy with: 'what shape hat is she wearing'  predicting a simple answer like: 'tall','peaked' or 'broad rimmed'.


Thanks, Aardvark & Cagey, for those examples. What would be really useful is a semantic or syntactic text corpus where you could look for patterns based on word class or clause function rather than specific words! 



> But then a longer answer would not surprise me: 'Boat shaped with lace and cherries on top and Morris dancers around the rim...'


Sounds like the perfect hat for A Day At The Races although I can't remember where you'll find the most outlandish ones...  !

/Wilma


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## Loob

panjandrum said:


> Frantic BE-speaker waving from the back corner.
> _What colour hat ...!!!!_
> I would never hear that question without thinking "non-native speaker".
> Whether non-native is AE or non-English-native I don't know, now.
> I always assumed "What colour hat ..." was an AE construction, but it appears not, from this thread.


Definitely not. I'm happy with: 
What colour hat...
What colour eyes...
What colour shirt...

What do you say instead, panj?


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## GreenWhiteBlue

Suppose you wanted to buy a friend a souvenir t-shirt on your next visit to Cancun.  Wouldn't every one ask "_*What size t-shirt* do you wear_?"

Is this any different?


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## Loob

I agree, GWB.

_What size T-shirt?_
_What colour T-shirt?_

Not an AmE/BrE difference, then, but something more subtle, perhaps.


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## panjandrum

As someone suggested earlier, I would insert "of" into all of these sentences if I were forced to use this particular question structure.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

"What size of t-shirt do you wear"?


Really, Panj???


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## Loob

That's interesting

The "of" version wouldn't work for me.


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## panjandrum

I know this structure, with _of_, sounds strange, but in reality it very rarely happens. The concept, the grammatical structure, is completely alien to me.

If we are talking about shoes - _what size do you take?_
If we are talking about something completely different and I have a sudden urge to ask about shoe size - _what is your shoe size?_

Eye colour?
What colour eyes do you have 
What colour are your eyes?


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## Loob

I agree that "what colour eyes do you have?" sounds odd.  But that's because the implication of the sentence is that you can choose/change your eye-colour...

I'm still intrigued by panj's desire to insert "of" in such sentences as "what size/colour shirt do you want?"


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## panjandrum

Loob said:


> I agree that "what colour eyes do you have?" sounds odd.  But that's because the implication of the sentence is that you can choose/change your eye-colour...
> 
> I'm still intrigued by panj's desire to insert "of" in such sentences as "what size/colour shirt do you want?"


It is not my desire to insert "of" in such sentences.
It is my desire to completely avoid this sentence structure.
If you back me into a corner and insist that I use a "What size/colour ....", then I will insist on putting "of" in the sentence.  Sorry about that.

Can you explain the context in which it would be necessary to ask this strange question?  I suggest that is happens very rarely.
If we are talking about shirts, "What size/colour do you want?" will be perfect.


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## Wilma_Sweden

Curiouser and curiouser! 

Constructions such as these are evidently in use and considered OK by some on both sides of the 'puddle' but perhaps the best advice to an EFL learner would be to play it safe and avoid them unless you're 110% positive that they will work in a given context.

One of the problems seems to be that you get a strange 'reversed compound' - *hat colour* works but *colour hat* looks odd. However, you can't say "What hat colour did you *buy*" because you don't buy the colour, you buy the hat. "What ice cream flavour did you *buy*?" would sound odd for the same reason, while "what ice cream flavour do you *like*?" would work.

The same with 'size shoe': You _could_ ask 'what shoe size do you *wear*?' but it sounds odd because you don't wear the *size*, you wear the shoe. The shop assistant could of course ask what *shoe size* I *want*, and then there's no need to reverse it to 'What *size shoe* do you want'...

/Wilma


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## Cagey

Well, yes. 

In "hat colour", hat works as an adjective, as you demonstrate above. 

In "what color hat did she buy?",  "color" is clearly the subject of the sentence and a noun.  "Hat" is also a noun.  It is awkward to have two nouns abutting each other without a marker that indicates their relationship.  Inserting "of" remedies this, although for other reasons it may seem clumsy.  The other remedy is to omit one of the nouns, as in Panj's "What size/color do you want?"

In fact, I agree that the construction is awkward, though common.


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## Loob

I don't think it's any more awkward than "the same colour shoes/the same size shoes".

I'm troubled by Wilma's summary: _what colour/size + noun_ is, to me, so unexceptional - so standard - that I'd hesitate to recommend that EFL students avoid it. 

I've tried to check the British National Corpus but for some reason it's being antsy.


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## Dimcl

GreenWhiteBlue said:


> Suppose you wanted to buy a friend a souvenir t-shirt on your next visit to Cancun. Wouldn't every one ask "_*What size t-shirt* do you wear_?"


 
Actually, no. If using this construction, I would always say "What size of t-shirt do you wear?"


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## Loob

Perhaps we're developing a varietal distinction here: CanE plus IE vs ROW?


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## natkretep

Wilma was asking about the grammar behind _what colour hat_, and the answer must be ellipsis. I would also assume that this would also be a pattern found more in speech than in writing. I wonder how folks, for instance, would transform the question into reported/indirect speech.

He said, 'What colour hat did you buy?'
He asked Jane ....

Would you say this or something else? _He asked Jane what colour hat she bought._


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## Wilma_Sweden

Loob said:


> I don't think it's any more awkward than "the same colour shoes/the same size shoes".
> 
> I'm troubled by Wilma's summary: _what colour/size + noun_ is, to me, so unexceptional - so standard - that I'd hesitate to recommend that EFL students avoid it.
> 
> I've tried to check the British National Corpus but for some reason it's being antsy.


I'm not troubled anymore - BNC samples favour your construction, i.e. _what colour/flavour/size + noun,_ (although there were a few _what size of + noun_, too). There were samples from conversations as well as written language. Consequently, I've jumped off the fence and into the ROW team! 

Thank you Natkretep, ellipsis seems to be the term for this construction. Based on Loob's testimony, the same construction would probably appear in reported speech, too, except perhaps in highly formal written language.

/Wilma


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## Aardvark01

I have noticed that friends from both Northern and Southern Ireland (plus a friend of Scottish descent from Alberta, Canada) use the construct with 'of' while this side of the channel we don't. . 
Could this be a result of the Celtic diaspora? It just doesn't sound 'right' without a Gaelic/Gallic accent. 

More Google results:
English
what colour *eyes*? - 14,400 - ...*car*? 3530 ...*hair*? 42,000
what colour of *eyes*? 4,400 - ...*car*? 226 .....*hair*? 19,000
American
what color *eyes*? - 65,000 - ...*car*? 11,800 ...*hair*? 50,900
what color of *eyes*? 5,040 - ...*car*? 722 .......*hair*? 4,190

The same numerical differences appear with size (of) shoe and feet, but the gap is less with shape (of) nose while the proportions are reversed for style of hat.
(The latter could be classed as a 'noun of kind' - kind (of), sort (of), type (of) - which are normally followed by 'of').

It appears that the construct is only common with colour or size.


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## panjandrum

GreenWhiteBlue said:


> Suppose you wanted to buy a friend a souvenir t-shirt on your next visit to Cancun.  Wouldn't every one ask "_*What size t-shirt* do you wear_?"
> Is this any different?





GreenWhiteBlue said:


> "What size of t-shirt do you wear"?
> Really, Panj???





Dimcl said:


> Actually, no. If using this construction, I would always say "What size of t-shirt do you wear?"


Responding to GWB's question and Dimcl's comment:
The need for this question does not arise.
We are having a conversation about the possibility of buying my friend a t-shirt - context set.  I ask "What size do you take?"


Loob said:


> I don't think it's any more awkward than "the same colour shoes/the same size shoes".
> [...]


I agree; it is no more awkward and no less awkward.  I wouldn't say "the same colour/size shoes" either.

If I had to find a grammatical explanation I would start from Cagey's comment about the two nouns coming together.
Some nouns comfortably take on an attributive role, hat for example.
So you can have a hat-pin, a hat-box, a hat shop.
Colour and size do not, for me, take on this role.


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## suzi br

What colour of hat did Jane buy.  

This sounds very odd to me, and if I heard it I'd assume an American speaker, simply because I've noticed before that they add in an "of" where we don't.  

In addition, I think of it as them ADDING and therefore not ellipsis to my sense of native speech.


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## johndot

Wilma was asking about the grammar behind _what colour hat_, and the answer must be ellipsis. I would also assume that this would also be a pattern found more in speech than in writing. I wonder how folks, for instance, would transform the question into reported/indirect speech.

He said, 'What colour hat did you buy?'
He asked Jane ....

Would you say this or something else? _He asked Jane what colour hat she bought._ 
(natkretep, post #33)

He asked Jane what colour hat she had bought.


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## natkretep

Thanks, John. So the construction is considered sufficiently acceptable for reported speech. (The perfective (no. 38) must reflect the form of the direct version: presumably then, John would prefer the direct speech version 'What colour hat have you bought?') I can only conclude, as Wilma has suggested, that this construction must be considered standard (except perhaps in Ireland and Canada).


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## Loob

As I've said by PM to one of the contributors to this thread, I think there are several dimensions to this question.

First, there's the varietal dimension: it's clear from the thread that "what colour+noun?" is {general} AmE as well as {general} BrE, although it's not IE or at least one variety of CanE. _(Dimcl: do you have Irish antecedents?)_

Then there's an "is it ellipsis?" issue. As suzi_br said, it certainly doesn't *feel* as if there's an elided "of" to the native speakers who use it....

And there's a "continuum" issue. I couldn't say "what colour of dress?"; nor could I say "what kind dress?" (without "of"). But I could say both "what flavour ice-cream?" and "what flavour of ice-cream?"

I wonder if there's a transition going on here, and some collocations are further down the "no preposition" route than others.


PS to natkretep: "He asked Jane what colour hat she had bought" is the indirect speech translation of both "What colour hat did you buy, Jane?" and "What colour hat have you bought, Jane?"

EDIT: Oops: meant to mention this Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English reference:[



> What colour dress did you buy?


quote]Wat colour dress did you buy?[/quote]


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## Dimcl

Loob said:


> First, there's the varietal dimension: it's clear from the thread that "what colour+noun?" is {general} AmE as well as {general} BrE, although it's not IE or at least one variety of CanE. _(Dimcl: do you have Irish antecedents?)_
> 
> *Scottish and English*


 
The use of "what colour/flavour/size XYZ" without the "of" sounds so foreign to my ears that I truly thought that it was strictly AE.  I was brought up to speak "proper English" (meaning "The Queen's English" in my family and educational institutions) and to find that this odd structure is perfectly natural to BE-speakers amazes me.

I can only attribute this phenomenon to the possibility that I have missed some decades of a population-wide, gradual slide into removing the use of "of" in these contexts or that it's an "age thing" whereby younger people have been taught the acceptability of no "of".


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## panjandrum

Dimcl said:


> The use of "what colour/flavour/size XYZ" without the "of" sounds so foreign to my ears that I truly thought that it was strictly AE.  I was brought up to speak "proper English" (meaning "The Queen's English" in my family and educational institutions) and to find that this odd structure is perfectly natural to BE-speakers amazes me.
> 
> I can only attribute this phenomenon to the possibility that I have missed some decades of a population-wide, gradual slide into removing the use of "of" in these contexts or that it's an "age thing" whereby younger people have been taught the acceptability of no "of".


I could have written that.


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## Wilma_Sweden

Thanks all of you for your input. I found the whole issue quite intriguing and will, given time, check available grammar books and/or linguistics sources. 

It's possible that there is some kind of language change going on, as Loob suggests, the end result of which we won't see for another few decades - who knows?

/Wilma


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## natkretep

Dimcl said:


> I can only attribute this phenomenon to the possibility that I have missed some decades of a population-wide, gradual slide into removing the use of "of" in these contexts or that it's an "age thing" whereby younger people have been taught the acceptability of no "of".


 
Some people talk of a 'colonial lag':



> Nonetheless, a certain antiquity is the point being made and the situation where colonies seem to fall behind developments in the mainland is often labelled ‘colonial lag’ (Görlach 1987).


Raymond Hickey, _Legacies of Colonial English: Studies in Transported Dialects_


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## losilmer

I would like to expose my opinion about this.

In "What colour or color hat do you like?" the word colour-color is not a name but an adjective. Like probably would be colorous, color-filled, or similar, forcing the interpretation. So, "What?" goes with hat, and *hat* is qualified by the adjetivized noun, therefore an adjective, in our case *colour/color*. The question would be "What hat (with color) do you like?". The same applies to "size shoe"="shoe (size-wise)", and so on. In a word, * what does not inquire about* the color or size or similar, which are adjectives, but about the object (hat, shoe, etc.), in order to distinguish or separate it from the rest of them. We do not want to know what color or size is, but what hat or shoe it is, (even though always referring to colors or sizes). I might be wrong, but this is which I had always thought.

Summing up, Elaine Koh's wanted to know how to ask about *the colour of the hat*, not about *what hat it was*.  So, the correct question would be   

What colour/color is the hat that/which Jane bought?
What colour/color is the hat Jane bought?
What is/What's the colour/color of the hat that/which Jane bought?
What is/What's the colour/color of the hat Jane bought? 
Also
What colour/color has the hat that/which Jane bought?
What colour/color has the hat Jane bought?


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## Jaka_Sembung

*"What is the colour of the hat Jane bought?"
*I think it sound more natural.
Correct Me if I'm Wrong...


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## Forero

I think the difficulty we are having is that "red", "green", etc., are both adjectives and nouns. I agree with Kitenok (Post #11).  To me "what colo(u)r" can serve as an interrogative adjective, to be answered with "red", "green", "red and green mottled", or some other colo(u)r adjective.

_ What color of hat did Jane buy?
_ The question is the color of the hat.
_ Red _(noun)_ is the color of the hat that Jane bought.
_ 
_ What color hat did Jane buy?
_ The question is what color the hat was (not what color it was "of").
_ Jane bought a red _(adjective)_ hat.
_


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## panjandrum

losilmer said:


> [...]
> In "What colour or color hat do you like?" the word colour-color is not a name but an adjective. Like probably would be colorous, color-filled, or similar, forcing the interpretation. So, "What?" goes with hat, and *hat* is qualified by the adjetivized noun, therefore an adjective, in our case *colour/color*. [...]


That is the grammatical device at work here.
It relies on _colour _and _size _being used in this way - being used attributively (see post #36).
For some of us at least, this is not normal usage and therefore _What colour hat_ sound alien.


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## George French

An interesting thread & so loonnng.

Colour as an adjective is in the dictionaries and there are more google hits for "*colour hat"* than for *"colour of hat".* This also applies to the US-EN spelling.

Random checks on the pages also suggest a few people are actually bothered about the colour of a hat!

GF...


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## losilmer

One more addition.
Being so that due to the flexibility of English we can transform a noun into an adjective with a mere transposition, it occurs to me that if Elaine Koh wants to ask for the colour/color, she could say:
What hat colour did Jane buy?  (what color of hat)
What hat colour is it that (which) Jane bought?


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## Nymeria

I would say,
"What colour hat did Jane buy?"
"What colour is the hat that Jane bought?"
"What is the colour of the hat that Jane bought?"

I would NEVER say,
"What colour *of *hat did Jane buy?

and I'd be so alarmed if anyone said it to me that I would forget all about Jane's hat.


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## Basil Ganglia

Elaine Koh said:


> *Jane bought a red hat.*
> 
> If I want to ask the colour of the hat, which below question is correct?  If none, how do I ask the question?
> 
> *What colour hat did Jane buy?*
> *What colour is the hat that Jane bought?*
> 
> *Thanks a lot.*


Weighing in as a native speaker of US English in the central and western States -----

either sentence is correct and both are commonly used.  I prefer (and use) the second option.  To me the first sentence is missing an "of" ("What color *of* hat ..."). But when I insert "of" it still sounds wrong, so I avoid that form and it grates on me when I hear it stated as in the first option (regardless of whether that version does or does not include the "of").


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## Nymeria

panjandrum said:


> I know this structure, with _of_, sounds strange, but in reality it very rarely happens. The concept, the grammatical structure, is completely alien to me.
> 
> If we are talking about shoes - _what size do you take?_
> If we are talking about something completely different and I have a sudden urge to ask about shoe size - _what is your shoe size?_
> 
> Eye colour?
> What colour eyes do you have
> What colour are your eyes?



I am much more likely to say, "What colour eyes do you have?" than "What colour are your eyes?" actually.


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## cfu507

Violo* said:


> Maybe: which is the colour of Jane's hat?


 
In English you ask: what color, what kind of music...


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## johndot

In English you ask: what color, what kind of music... (cfu507, post#54)
 
No, I wouldn’t, cfu507; in English I would ask “Which colour would you like (me to buy for you)?” *but* “What colour is it (the new hat you just bought)?”

There’s a difference between asking someone to make a selection, and asking someone to state information. Surely this aspect is common in all four quarters?


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## Cagey

johndot said:


> In English you ask: what color, what kind of music... (cfu507, post#54)
> 
> No, I wouldn’t, cfu507; in English I would ask “Which colour would you like (me to buy for you)?” *but* “What colour is it (the new hat you just bought)?”
> 
> There’s a difference between asking someone to make a selection, and asking someone to state information. Surely this aspect is common in all four quarters?



This is a new and interesting point.

However, all the previous discussion has concerned queries about choices already made (as in your second example), and I believe that cfu's response was made in that context.


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## johndot

This is a new and interesting point.
However, all the previous discussion has concerned queries about choices already made (as in your second example), and I believe that cfu's response was made in that context. (Cagey, post #56)
 
Yes, Cagey, I realised that—but I didn’t want the rather bald statement “In English you ask: what color, what kind of music...” to mislead others.


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## losilmer

GreenWhiteBlue said:


> Suppose you wanted to buy a friend a souvenir t-shirt on your next visit to Cancun.  Wouldn't every one ask "_*What size t-shirt* do you wear_?"
> 
> Is this any different?




I think it is different.

The question would be:
What *T-shirt size *do you wear?, because they would be wanting to know the *size on T-shirts*.


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## Forero

"What size hat" and "what color hat" work for me, but not "what kind hat".


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## kitenok

Interestingly enough, although the OED made no allowance for _colo(u)r_ followed immediately by a noun, it does so for _size_, and has examples back to 1769: 


> 11b. Used _ellipt._ with a n. following...
> 1769... _Eng. Housekpr._ 41 Cut your sturgeon into *what size* *pieces* you please...


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## KON

Can one also say "What hat size" or "what hat colour"? 

I am asking this because when you go into a shop and ask for a pair of shoes, the shop assistant usually asks: "what's your shoe size"?


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## Dimcl

Yes, that's perfectly fine.


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## Drake Solo

< This new question has been added to a previous thread. Cagey, moderator > 

Which color iPhone did you get ?
I got the red one .

Is this way of asking about the color of something grammatical correct?

Can I ask other things besides colors .... Like brands for example

What brand phone should I buy ?
You should buy a Samsung phone


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## Copyright

_What/Which color iPhone did you get?
I got the red one.

What/Which brand of phone should I buy?
You should buy a Samsung (phone)._

Note that we do not leave a space before ending punctuation.


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## manfy

Copyright said:


> _What/Which color iPhone did you get?
> I got the red one._



 I know that this kind of question is common - and clear enough for that matter -, but would you really consider it grammatical?
I doubt it because 'color iPhone' is not a valid sensible compound noun.

I'd say the grammatical textbook version of this question should be something like "In what color did you get your iPhone?"


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## sound shift

manfy said:


> I'd say the grammatical textbook version of this question should be something like "In what color did you get your iPhone?"


Like Copyright, I deal in 'usage', not in 'grammar', and I have to say that "In what color did you get your iPhone?" is not something that a native speaker would say. There's absolutely nothing wrong with "What color iPhone did you get?" If grammar is descriptive rather than prescriptive, it will find a category for "What color iPhone did you get?"


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## Copyright

manfy said:


> I know that this kind of question is common - and clear enough for that matter -, but would you really consider it grammatical?
> I doubt it because 'color iPhone' is not a valid sensible compound noun.


You might like to look at this previous thread:
[What colour (of) hat did Jane buy?]< Threads merged. Cagey, moderator >


> I'd say the grammatical textbook version of this question should be something like "In what color did you get your iPhone?"


Like sound shift, I find this quite odd and certainly non-native.


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## entangledbank

'Colour iPhone' is not a compound noun; the structure of 'what colour iPhone' (do you mind if I revert to phones, things I know more about?) is that 'what colour' is an adjective-like modifier of 'phone'. If I ask 'what colour did you buy?', I'm not suggesting you bought a colour. It still has adjective-like use here. We can combine two such modifiers: 'What size and what colour phone did you buy?'

Contrast: Which colour television did you buy? (which colour was the television?) v. Which colour television did you buy? (which was the colour television?) The intonation is a bit different, marking the different structures.


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## manfy

Copyright said:


> You might like to look at this previous thread:
> [What colour (of) hat did Jane buy?]. < Now merged. Scroll to top.  Cagey, moderator >



Thanks for this! I just skimmed through it, and it seems that also some native speakers are not entirely happy with that type of construction.


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## DonnyB

manfy said:


> I know that this kind of question is common - and clear enough for that matter -, but would you really consider it grammatical?
> I doubt it because 'color iPhone' is not a valid sensible compound noun.


I suspect it should be "What colour of phone did you buy?" in the same way as the OP's parallel example of "What brand of phone did you buy?" (or What size/type of phone...etc).

But in ordinary everyday BE, "What colour phone..." is very common and idiomatic.


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## Copyright

manfy said:


> Thanks for this! I just skimmed through it, and it seems that also some native speakers are not entirely happy with that type of construction.


And to be fair, others are. You also have to look at AE versus BE. The thread deserves more than a skim.


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## Dale Texas

Sorry, you are mistaken.

We only use "in" in constructions when _merchants_ describe _categories_ (colors, sizes, patterns, prices, etc.) of their products which are _*available:*_

EX:

_"The phone comes in black only.  Its case comes in black, red, or purple."
_
English frequently drops certain words, particularly prepositions which are understood, so not necessary to utter, and we can do the same for articles:

"What/Which color (of)(the) phone did you get?"  That is a completely grammatical sentence.

I agree with other posters that your "in what color did you get your phone" is not idiomatic.

(cross-posted with others)


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## owlman5

"Of" after "color" seems optional in the first sentence.  I'd definitely use "of" after "brand": Which brand of phone should I buy?  "Which brand phone?" sounds odd and incomplete.


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