Ford
Prefect's original name is only pronuncible in an obscure Betelgeusian
dialect, now virtually extinct since the Great Collapsing Hrung
Disaster of Gal./Sid./Year 03758 which wiped out all the old
Praxibetel communities on Betelgeuse Seven. Ford's father was the only
man on the entire planet to survive the Great Collapsing Hrung
disaster, by an extraordinary coincidence that he was never able
satisfactorily to explain. The whole episode is shrouded in deep
mystery: in fact no one ever knew what a Hrung was nor why it had
chosen to collapse on Betelgeuse Seven particularly. Ford's father,
magnanimously waving aside the clouds of suspicion that had inevitably
settled around him, came to live on Betelgeuse Five where he both
fathered and uncled Ford; in memory of his now dead race he christened
him in the ancient Praxibetel tongue.
Because Ford never learned to say his original name, his father
eventually died of shame, which is still a terminal disease in some
parts of the Galaxy. The other kids at school nicknamed him Ix, which
in the language of Betelgeuse Five translates as ``boy who is not able
satisfactorily to explain what a Hrung is, nor why it should choose to
collapse on Betelgeuse Seven''.
