Re: CHAT: feckly off-topic (was: THEORY: Storage Vs. Computation)

Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
>
> On Sat, 19 Jun 1999, Sally Caves wrote:
>
> > Well, its association with creativity is indisputable... but it's such
> > an
> > ugly word.  Makes me think secretions. <G>  Like pulchritude, an
> > amazingly
> > ugly word that means "beauty."  Why are there ugly words to describe
> > beautiful things, and beautiful words to describe ugly things?  Like
> > _diphtheria_.  Absolutely beautiful word!  That is, if you pronounce it
> > as it should be pronounced, with an /f/ instead of a /p/.  Oh well,
> > it's all a matter of taste, I suppose.
> >
> > Sally
> >
>
> Mush! That's what my memory is turning into - I remember reading
> a book, possibly a children's book, where the parents named their
> daughter something like Hypochondria because they liked the sound
> of it so much - maybe Diphteria is her twin sister? I can't remember
> either title nor the actual name of the daughter. It wasn't Roald
> Dahls Verucca.
Oh, there is that pitiful story of a student in a class taught by a
friend of mine back at Berkeley who had been named Urethra.  Actually,
that's a lovely word, too, and the parents obviously got it mixed up
with Aretha.  We convinced her to change the spelling.

> I like pulchritude, actually, although it sounds like a skin disease.
> I remember that the name Charya was derived from the Dutch 'charitatief',
> 'charitable', which I liked the sound of immediately when I first heard
> of the word, when I was ten or thereabout.
>
> By the way, to keep this on topic: Charya is pronounced /'xa-ri:-a:/
> or /'xa-rjA./, but never /tsjE-ri-'e/.
That makes a world of difference!  Thank you for correcting a silent
error of mine, and changing my sense completely of your conculture.
Amazing how the sounds of words affect our sense of a thing.

Sally