One For The Drawing Board

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Personally, I have always despised drawing and/or writing with chalk. I never quite knew what it was. Is it the feeling of it against the concrete? The blackboard? Is it the sound it makes if it moves just right? What is it that makes me physically cringe when I use chalk?
With some research and discussion with other people, it seems to have something to do with the negative connotation of "nails on a chalkboard". It's a sound that will make anybody uncomfortable. Why? Because we have been told it's a bad sound. In an article published by Daily Mail it says "The researchers - led by Michael Oehler of the Macromedia University for Media and Communication in Cologne, Germany - found that the listeners who'd been told they were listening to fingernails were more disgusted and appalled than those who hadn't" (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2056640/Revealed-Why-fingernails-blackboard-sound-awful.html). 
This research is in support of the notion that ones preference to a sound being either good or bad is cultural. Much like with music, it depends what the subject has been conditioned to think of as "good". To western cultures, the sound of a didgeridoo is strange and even comical, while to those in Australia it is associated with a rich culture and beauty.

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