North of Canada etc.

If you have no idea how you got here, back up to here.

If you do, the answer is that more than half of the fifty U.S. states, a total of 27 to be exact, are located wholly or in part north of the southernmost part of Canada, including such surprises as Iowa, Indiana, and Nevada.  Below is the list, and a map is here, which you should go to.

*According to the Wikipedia ARTICLE on the subject, the 12 states marked with an asterisk are entirely north of the southernmost part of Canada.

(If you use GOOGLE EARTH to check out any of my claims, note that when you zoom in far enough from the initial point above the United States, without changing anything else, you end UP in an apartment complex called Meadowbrook where I lived during the summer of 1978.  Now I'm famous.)

Update of December 2001:  What do Al and Elizabeth have in common in reverse?

I declare that there are more names whose nickname is Al than any other nickname, and I declare that the name with the most nicknames is Elizabeth.

Here are some names for the nickname Al.

Can you add any more full names for the nickname Al?

Update of January 2002: Thanks go to someone whose identity I have lost track of for contributing Alcee Hastings, Alfonse Giardello, Alger Hiss and Algernon Blackwood.

Update of November 2002: Thanks go to me for accidentally finding an Alphred.  Oddly, his wife was named Elizabeth.

Update of January 2003: Thanks go to Paul Tuhus for reminding us all of Alferd G. Packer.

 

Now as to Elizabeth, she has the most nicknames.

Can you add any more nicknames for Elizabeth?

¹Update of June 2002: Thanks go to Bill Burns for contributing Lilibet, which, as it turns out, was the childhood nickname of England's Queen Elizabeth.  Speaking of which, have you ever seen photos of her as a young lady?  She was hot.  (Needless to say, I'm referring here to Queen Elizabeth, not Bill Burns.)

²Update of July 2002: Thanks also go to Coral Amende's BOOK Famous Name Finder for the addition of Betta.

³Update of November 2002: It was the very helpful Annie who told me about every single one of the nicknames above with a footnote number of 3.  A controversy still remains, to wit, is Ziz or Zizzy a nickname for Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice?  Please .  Also, I'm not sure Isabella is a nickname for Elizabeth.  Update of May 2005: According to Hannah, who says she's read P&P about 14 times, "at no point is Elizabeth Bennett [sic] called 'Ziz' or 'Zizzy.'"

⁴Update of January 2003: Thank you, Paul Tuhus, for contributing Biz.  He says, "Friends of mine have a daughter named Elizabeth, whose nickname since birth has been Biz."

⁵Update of May 2003: Thanks go to Chris for contributing Bets, Etta, Ettie, Zab and Zabs.  He or she says, "I haven't read much Jane Austen but I do know a woman who goes by Zizzy (or maybe Zizzi or Zizi?) whose given name is Elizabeth.  And, of course, it barely bears mention that you have omitted the all-too-common 'Zab' and 'Zabs.'  (Maybe those are just Canadianisms?)"

⁶Update of March 2006: "You have Tib, but I'm called Tibby or Tibs."

⁷Update of April 5, 2006: A correspondent added Isabel and wrote later to say, ". . . I'm shocked that Lizard is not on your list.  I was frequently called Lizard by the little boys in my neighborhood when I was a kid!"  Oddly, I received her mail at just the right moment after two minutes past one o'clock. and the time stamp on that mail reads as follows:

01:02:03 04/05/06.

⁸Update of April 29, 2006: Today a caller from Indianapolis to the "Car Talk" radio show said her name is Elee ("EEL-ee"), which she also helpfully spelled.  She said her given name is Elizabeth, which happens to be the Magloizzis' mother's name, and it turns out that during one period in her 40's Mrs. Magliozzi denied her name was Elizabeth and insisted it was Alissa.

⁹Update of May 2, 2006: The Empress Elisabeth von Wittelsbach of Austria (see HERE for a Wikipedia article) is referred to as both Sisi and Sissi.  Note that, strictly speaking, she was not an Elizabeth, but thanks go to LH for bringing these nicknames to my attention.

¹⁰Update of December 24, 2007: According to an e-mail received today, the writer "had a girlfriend who called herself Ebeth."

Do you agree Al and Elizabeth win?

  
Now as to men's names with the most nicknames, the pickin's are slimmer.  I think Richard wins with ten.  If you know of a man's name with ten or more nicknames, please .

  
Among the second-place finishers are Robert and William with six each.  Both of these common mens' names are abbreviable.  Robert becomes Rob't., and William becomes Wm.

And abbreviating William makes sense to me.  You shorten the name by five characters, or 62%, plus which if you're writing it you don't have to dot two "i's" you otherwise would have to.

But Rob't. for Robert is the same number of characters, a savings of 0%, plus which you still have a "t" to cross.  In what way is Rob't. better than Robert?

A few other men's names can be abbreviated.  There's George (Geo.), Thomas (Thos.), Charles (Chas.) and Theodore (Theo.).  If you know of any others, please .  (Also, can you think of even one woman's name that is commonly abbreviated?)

Rob't. E. Lee was the most famous Southern general of the U.S. Civil War.  Another famous U.S. general (whose first name is Go, if that helps you identify him) and his cohort also had odd ways of signing their names.  Here are some of the 39 names signed at the bottom of the original U.S. Constitution.
  

Update of December 2001: For some reason this summer I paid five dollars at a flea market for a 1936 edition of Emily Post's famous Etiquette.  She had some very definite opinions, and I thought you'd like to read one from page 695 that I just now got to.

On no account allow any haberdasher to persuade you to carry an ebony cane, nor any cane with an ivory, silver, or gold top in the form of a knob.  From the standpoint of good taste or smartness, nothing worse or more vulgar can be imagined than the combined taboos of ebony with an ivory or metal knob!

And to think I don't care all that much whether my shoes match.

(And on that exact same topic, Ms. Post's phrase "nothing worse or vulgar can be imagined" reminds me of a similarly hyperbolic phrase by Trent Lott at the top of this page.)

Update of December 18, 2001: Long-time readers of this Web site have complained they wish I hadn't removed the section, from way back in 1996, titled, "Two Simple, Foolproof Methods to Make a Million Dollars in the Stock Market."  I would reproduce it here but because of a hard drive crash and an earlier utter failure to back up same, I no longer have that section.

But I can remember how the two simple, foolproof methods started, so let me reproduce just those, and maybe that'll jog your memory.

Method #1. First, get a million dollars . . .
  
Method #2. The first step is to spin really fast like Superman and go back in time . . .

Update of December 22, 2001: Here's the tag line from a radio spot promoting the healthful, pastoral environment of a bed-and-breakfast hotel in the milk-cow and cheese belt of Wisconsin.

          "Come smell our dairy air."

This is the third paragraph of that story, containing a crucial and widely reported quote. Cardinals across the country are reporting back after a two-day gathering in Rome, where they agreed they would recommend a process to defrock any priest who has become "notorious and is guilty of the serial, predatory sexual abuse of minors."

It seems to me the Church has set the bar kind of high.

According to my analysis, you will not get defrocked as long as you meet any of the following criteria:

• You're notorious for and guilty of the serial, predatory sexual abuse of people as long as they aren't minors.  (Over 18 and they're fair game.)
    
• You're notorious for and guilty of the serial, predatory abuse of minors as long as it isn't sexual abuse.  (Don't get an erection.)
    
• You're notorious for and guilty of the serial sexual abuse of minors as long as it isn't predatory.  (Under what circumstances could the serial sexual abuse of a minor by a Roman Catholic priest not be predatory?)
    
• You're notorious for and guilty of the predatory sexual abuse of minors as long as it isn't serial.  (You get one freebie.  Also, if I were especially picayune, I might even comment on the fact it's minors, plural, not minor.  Does that mean you keep your frock as long as your serial, predatory sexual abuse is restricted to just one minor?)
    
• You're guilty of the serial, predatory sexual abuse of minors as long as you aren't notorious for it.  (If you don't become widely known for your bad behavior then, by definition, you aren't notorious.  This is an especially interesting one, because all you have to do to keep your frock is KEEP SECRET your serial, predatory sexual abuse of minors.)
  

And I want to know exactly what is meant by two additional terms in that quote.  One is the term guilty.  Guilty in a civil lawsuit?  A jury verdict in a criminal trial?  A church inquiry?  If it's a church inquiry, one has a right to wonder, based on the list above, just how tough it is to pass.

The other is the term sexual abuse.  Exactly how does the Roman Catholic Church define it?  I really want to know.

More here later . . .