From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Apr 10 11:26:27 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from theory1.physics.iisc.ernet.in (theory1.physics.iisc.ernet.in [144.16.71.20]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 8DA1137B6A7 for ; Mon, 10 Apr 2000 11:25:57 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from rsidd@theory1.physics.iisc.ernet.in) Received: (qmail 1425 invoked by uid 211); 10 Apr 2000 18:25:36 -0000 Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2000 23:55:36 +0530 From: Rahul Siddharthan To: Dag-Erling Smorgrav Cc: Brett Taylor , Christian Weisgerber , freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Spellings [was Re: BSDCon East] Message-ID: <20000410235535.B1339@theory1.physics.iisc.ernet.in> References: <20000410101700.B317@theory8.physics.iisc.ernet.in> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0.1i In-Reply-To: ; from des@flood.ping.uio.no on Mon, Apr 10, 2000 at 11:10:55AM +0200 X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 3.4-STABLE i386 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Dag-Erling Smorgrav said on Apr 10, 2000 at 11:10:55: > > > > > apparently French physicists were annoyed when John Wheeler coined > > > > > the word "black hole" because it translated to anus. > > I just asked a French teacher of my acquaintance. She said it's true, > > it can be interpreted in that way. > > No more than the english term "black hole" can be interpreted as > meaning "anus". Looks like DES is right. I described this thread to a Paris-based French physicist and got the following reply. Regarding "black holes": I agree basically w/the norwegian point of view. It doesnt obviuosly mean anything dirty in French except if you really stretch things, and in any case its unclear what you would make it sound like. So I dont know what the story is based on. I'll ask around my (French) astrophysics friends ! -Rahul. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message