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Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Names


From a letter by STC, on his first name:

``from my earliest years I have had a feeling of Dislike & Disgust connected with my own Christian Names: such a vile short plumpness, such a dull abortive smartness in the first Syllable, & this so harshly contrasted by the obscurity & indefiniteness of the syllable Vowel, and the feebleness of the uncovered liquid, with which it ends--the wabble it makes, & staggering between a diss--& a tri-syllable--& the whole name sounding as if you were abeeceeing S.M.U.L.--altogether it is perhaps the worst combination, of which vowels & consonants are susceptible.''

(but he liked Coleridge)


Some pseudonyms:

(He sometimes did it for fun, but it was also considered inexcusably conceited at the time, to use one's own name in a contribution to a mere newspaper.)
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