Names
The word "glass harmonica" (also glassharmonica, glass armonica, harmonica de verre or armonica de verre in French, glasharmonika in German) refers to any instrument played by rubbing glass or crystal goblets or bowls. When Benjamin Franklin invented his mechanical version of the instrument, he called it the armonica, based on the Italian word "armonia," which means "harmony." The instrument consisting of a set of wine glasses (usually tuned with water) is generally known in English as "musical glasses" or "glass harp."
The word hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica is also recorded, composed of Greek roots to mean something like "harmonica to produce music for the soul by fingers dipped in water," (hydro- for "water," daktul (daktyl) for "finger," psych- for "soul") The Oxford Companion to Music mentions that this word is "the longest section of the Greek language ever attached to any musical instrument, for a reader of The Times wrote to that paper in 1932 to say that in his youth he heard a performance of the instrument where it was called a hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica." The Museum of Music in Paris displays a hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica.
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—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
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—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
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