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Harry was a poisonous centipede.

You may think that’s not a very nice thing to be. But Harry thought it was fine. He’d never been anything else, and he liked being what he was.

If you’d told him centipedes are nasty scary creepy-crawlies, he would have been very surprised and rather hurt.

And if you’d told him that biting things with poisonous pincers was wrong or cruel, he would probably have told you not to be ridiculous. How else would he get anything to eat, or defend himself from creatures wanting to eat him?

Of course, you couldn’t have talked to Harry like that, even if you’d met him, because he couldn’t have understood you. Harry could only speak to other centipedes in Centipedish. In fact, his real name wasn’t Harry at all. It was (as nearly as I can write it) Hxzltl.

Hxzltl?

Yes. You see the problem at once. There are no vowel-sounds in Centipedish, just a sort of very faint crackling. What you could do is put in some vowel-sounds – some a’s, e’s, i’s, o’s and u’s – so that you can try to say his real name. Then you could call him Hixzalittle. Or Hoxzalottle. Or perhaps even Haxzaluttle. But still you wouldn’t be anywhere near the real sound of his name.