Ranga

Ranga (pronounced rang-ah)

In Australian slang, a person with red (ginger, auburn etc) hair

1990s: Based on the name orang-utan (pronounced aw-rang-oo-tan, oh-rang-oo-tan or uh-rang-oo-tan), either of two endangered species of long-armed, arboreal anthropoid great ape, the only extant members of the subfamily Ponginae, inhabiting Borneo (Pongo pygmaeus) and Sumatra (P. abelii).  The alternative spellings are orangutan, orangutang & orangoutang, all of which are used with the same pronunciation variation as the standard form.  In Western zoology, the orang-utan was added to the taxonomic classifications in the 1690s, from the Dutch orang outang, apparently from the Malay ōrang hūtan and translating literally as “forest man”, the construct being ōrang (man, person) + hūtan (forest).  Found in the forests of Sumatra and Borneo, it was noted immediately for its shaggy, reddish-brown hair and this coloration is the source of the Australian slang.  Ranga is a noun; the noun plural is rangas.

A ketchup of gingers?  Roodharigendag in the Netherlands.

Since 2005 (except in 2020 when COVID-19 stopped such things), the Netherlands has hosted what is described as the "world's largest gathering of redheads".  Unadventurously, the three-day festival (which attracts participants from over eighty nations) is known as Roodharigendag (Redhead Day).  There are a variety of events including lectures and pub-crawls; presumably, coffee shops are visited.

An Orangutan in Sumatra.  International Orangutan Day is 19 August.

Because, once deconstructed, to call someone a ranga is to compare them to a sub-human primate, it would seem the word probably would be thought offensive but it remains widely used and is one of the additions to English which has spread from Australia.  It certainly can be offensive and is often (though apparently mostly by children) used that way but it can also be a neutral descriptor or a form of self-identification by the redheaded.  It may be that many of those who deploy ranga (for whatever purpose) are unaware of the origin with a sub-human primate and treat it as just another word and in that sense it’s actually less explicit than some of the many alternatives with a longer linguistic lineage including ginger minge, firecrotch, carrot top, fanta pants, rusty crutch, & blood nut.  There was also the curiously Australian moniker “blue” (and the inevitable “bluey”) to describe the redheads, an adoption in the tradition of “lofty” sometimes being applied to the notably short.  Whether ranga is more or less offensive than any of those (none of which reference apes) is something on which not all redheads may agree but in 2017 (some months on from ranga being added to the Australian Dictionary), presumably so there was a forum to discuss such matters, RANGA (the Red And Nearly Ginger Association) was formed, finding its natural home on social media where it operates to provide social support rather than being a pressure group.

Ginger, copper, auburn & chestnut are variations on the theme of red-headedness: Lindsay Lohan demonstrates the possibilities.  Red hair is the result of a mutation in the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) gene responsible for producing the MC1R protein which plays a crucial role also in determining skin-tone. When the MC1R gene is functioning normally, it helps produce eumelanin, a type of melanin that gives hair a dark color.  However, a certain mutation in the MC1R gene leads to the production of pheomelanin which results in red hair.  Individuals with two copies of the mutated MC1R gene (one from each parent) typically have red hair, fair skin, and a higher sensitivity to ultraviolet (UV) light, a genetic variation found most often in those of northern & western European descent.

Just as blonde women have long been objectified and derided as of limited intelligence (ie the "dumb" blonde), redheads have been stereotyped as sexually promiscuous (women) or having fiery tempers (men & women) but there is no evidence supporting any relationship between hair color, personality type or temperament.  The sample sizes are inherently small (redheads less than 2% of the global population) but there are populations in which the predominance is higher, so further research would be interesting but such questions are of course now unfashionable.  Most style guides list "red-haired”, “redhead” & “redheaded” as acceptable descriptors but the modern practice is wherever possible to avoid references which apply to physical characteristics, much as the suggestion now is not to invoke any term related to race or ethnic origin.  That way nothing can go wrong.  If it’s a purely technical matter, such as hair products, then descriptors are unavoidable (part-numbers not as helpful at the retail level) and there’s quite an array, ranging from light ginger at the lighter end to chestnuts and and auburns at the darker and there was a time when auburn was used as something of a class-identifier.

Jessica Gagen, Miss England, 2022.

Recently victorious in the Miss England 2022 pageant, Jessica Gagen (b 1995) is the first redhead to take the title.  Having been subject to bullying as a child, Ms Gagen has indicated she’ll be using her platform to spread a positive message to those who have also suffered cruel taunts about being red-headed and she’ll represent England at the 71st Miss World in the (northern) spring of 2023.  After leaving school, Ms Gagen discovered one advantage of her hair color was it attracted modeling agencies and she pursued a lucrative international career.  Now studying for a masters degree in aerospace engineering at Liverpool University, she’s involved in a programme to encourage girls to take up the study of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects and notes her engineering course has made her aware of the extent to which these fields remain male-dominated.

Peak Jessica: Jessica Gagen pictured cooling off during England’s recent heat-wave when temperatures reached a record 42^o C (108^o F), something long thought impossible because of the interplay of the movement of seawater and sea currents around the British Isles.  It's an urban myth that redheads (being "hot-headed" in the popular imagination) need to "cool down" more than most in some conditions. 

Interestingly, Ms Gagen says her participation in beauty contests changed her perception of them as sexist displays, regarding that view as archaic, noting the women involved all seemed to have their own motives, usually involving raising awareness about something of great personal interest.  Being part of the cohort likely to do well in beauty contests is of course just a form of comparative advantage in the way some have a genetic mix which makes them suitable to play basketball.  The beauty contest is thus an economic opportunity and choosing to participate in one can be a rational choice in that one's allocation of time and resources can yield greater returns than the alternatives.  Another notable thing about Jessica Gagen is that being born in 1995, she is part of that sub-set of the population called “peak Jessica”, the cohort which reflected the extraordinary popularity of the name between 1981-1997, overlapping slightly with “peak Jennifer” which occurred between 1970-1984.