Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!panix!.POSTED.2602:f977:0:1::5!not-for-mail From: Rich Alderson Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: The joy of FORTRAN Date: 27 Feb 2025 19:29:12 -0500 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC Lines: 30 Sender: alderson+news@panix5.panix.com Message-ID: References: <1smdnSjX3YoxgWf7nZ2dnZfqn_idnZ2d@earthlink.com> <1396870532.749421730.052473.peter_flass-yahoo.com@news.eternal-september.org> <1976765442.762208809.808387.peter_flass-yahoo.com@news.eternal-september.org> <20250225130315.00004e34@gmail.com> <1924764604.762215659.468999.peter_flass-yahoo.com@news.eternal-september.org> Injection-Info: reader1.panix.com; posting-host="2602:f977:0:1::5"; logging-data="10072"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@panix.com" X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 22.3 Bytes: 2696 Lawrence D'Oliveiro writes: > On Thu, 27 Feb 2025 07:43:08 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote: >> On 2025-02-27, Lawrence D'Oliveiro 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