loading array values directly

[jacek]

Do I read that as "strings in C are of the nature of pointers to char-length memory spaces"?

Yes.

How come you still don't need to specify the first dimension?

It's one of those inconsistencies and in fact arrays are evil.

And if I declare char *namelist[] and include lots of strings should it not be mandatory that I specify the second dimension - i.e. the maximum length of strings?

Because you declare an array of pointers, not a two dimensional array.