Re: The joy of FORTRAN

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

On Thu, 27 Feb 2025 07:43:08 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

On 2025-02-27, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

Just as nobody says "awful" to mean "awesome".

To be fair ("To be fair..."  "To be fair..."  "To be fair..."  --
Letterkenny) that word's spelling was, I believe, "aweful" - at least
some of the time.

I read somewhere of a story where, I think it was King James VI/I,
complimenting an architect on his latest construction, used three adjectives
that would be construed quite differently today. The only one I can remember
was "awful".

Poul Anderson used the story of King James and Sir Christopher Wren and the
compliment that the new Cathedral of St. Paul was "awful, pompous, and
artificial" as the opening epigram of his short story "A Tragedy of Errors"
(first published in _Galaxy_, February 1968), with a note as epilogue that a
later version would read "awe-inspiring, stately, and well conceived".

Don't try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs, boy.

--
Rich Alderson   news@alderson.users.panix.com
      Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
  omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
--Galen