On 6/10/07, Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH wrote:

You're pretty close, actually :) Names derived from Hebrew were fairly common in the Bible belt back when he was born. ("Haskell" from השקל, wisdom. I half suspect "Curry" has a Biblical origin as well, from קרי.)

Bible belt? Curry was born in Millis, Massachusetts, and grew up in Boston. The word "Haskell" seems to occur much more frequently as a surname, originating in the British Isles. It seems more plausible that he got the name "Haskell" from some relative or family friend somewhere than ascribing a Hebrew origin for his name. Steve

For what it's worth, a handful of people who have ordered Haskell merchandise from the CafePress store over the years have had "Haskell" as a surname. I assume they look at the designs before they buy, and I can't imagine what they think of some of them, but I guess the allure of having your (fairly obscure) name on a shirt can be irresistible. Then again, I suppose they could be functional programmers who just happen to have Haskell as a surname. -- Fritz PS: In other CafePress-Haskell Shop trivia, 277 items have been sold since the turn of the century, at a total price of just over one thousand dollars ... but, of course, no profit. (This last seems to be a slight problem with our business model.) The most curious order to date was a canceled one for 60 junior "baby doll" t-shirts: I like to imagine that some sort of big chorus number was planned for an ill- fated Broadway revue, but who can tell? On Mon 11 Jun 07, at 7:35 am, Stephen Forrest wrote:

On 6/10/07, Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH wrote:

You're pretty close, actually :) Names derived from Hebrew were fairly common in the Bible belt back when he was born. ("Haskell" from השקל, wisdom. I half suspect "Curry" has a Biblical origin as well, from קרי.)

Bible belt? Curry was born in Millis, Massachusetts, and grew up in Boston.

The word "Haskell" seems to occur much more frequently as a surname, originating in the British Isles. It seems more plausible that he got the name "Haskell" from some relative or family friend somewhere than ascribing a Hebrew origin for his name.

Steve _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

Paul Hudak wrote:

As reported in the recent HOPL paper, /A History of Haskell/, Haskell Brooks Curry actually didn't like his first name! I learned this when I visited his wife, Virginia Curry, at the time when we decided to name a language after her husband.

Yes... I recall reading that somewhere. (Irony, eh? Name something after somebody and find they hated the name anyway...) I *also* distinctly recall reading somewhere the following words: "Of course, our biggest mistake was using the word 'monad'. We should have called it 'warm fuzzy thing'..." Damned if I can remember who said that or where they said it though! >_<

Thomas Schilling wrote:

On 6/11/07, Andrew Coppin wrote:

...

"Of course, our biggest mistake was using the word 'monad'. We should have called it 'warm fuzzy thing'..."

You know that thing called "Google"? ;)

http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/92

Among others.

I don't see any reference t-- oh, wait. Half way down the 20-mile page. I see it now. Simon (the PJ one) says "Our biggest mistake [in designing Haskell] was using the scary term 'monad' rather than 'warm fuzzy thing'." in Wearing the hair shirt: A retrospective on Haskell. And now I have a URL. >:-)