November 10, 2022

So listening to old recordings of the British actor David McCallum reading three stories by H.P. Lovecraft during my recent drives to and from Maine c/w a bad joke I made in a chat a short while ago using the Greek alphabet may or may not have led me to the following insight: the name of Lovecraft's vaguely octopoid god Cthulhu likely has its root in the Greek word "chthonic," which means basically of or relating to the underworld. I'm guessing Lovecraft kept the first part of the word as much for its gaggy sound as for the allusion, and added the two subsequent syllables to suggest gobs of phlegm. Et voilà!