Canada is south of Detroit.
Due to a curve in the border, Windsor, Ontario, lies south of Michigan’s largest city.
A floral compass in Windsor bears a plaque that reads:
THE GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION OF THE U.S.A. AT THIS POINT LIES DUE NORTH OF CANADA
“How Rumors Spread,” a palindrome by Fred Yannantuono:
“Idiot to idiot to idiot to idiot to idiot to idi …”
According to Elsdon Smith’s 1967 Treasury of Name Lore, Gwendolyn Kuuleikailialohaopiilaniwailaukekoaulumahiehiekealaoonoaonaopiikea Kekino had a birth certificate to prove her name. Her family called her Piikea.
Albert K. Kahalekula of Wailuku, Hawaii, was a private in the Army in 1957. The K stood for Kahekilikuiikalewaokamehameha. Until Albert’s 29-letter middle name was registered, his brothers had the longest middle names in U.S. military service — each was 22 letters long.
In 1955, restaurant owner George Pappavlahodimitrakopoulous had the longest name in the Lansing, Mich., telephone directory. He made a standing offer of a free meal to anyone who could pronounce the name correctly on the first try (PDF).
Lambros A. Pappatoriantafillospoulous of Chicopee, Mass., joined the Army in 1953, where he was called Mr. Alphabet.
According to Smith, a native policeman in Fiji, British Polynesia, had the name Marika Tuimudremudrenicagitokalauna-tobakonatewaenagaunakalakivolaikoyakinakotamanaenaiivolanikawabualenavalenivolavolaniyasanamaisomosomo, 130 letters long. “The name is said to tell that, with the aid of a northerly wind, Marika’s father sailed from Natewa, on Vanua Levu, to the provincial office at Somosomo, Taveuni, to register the birth of the child.”
The longest name on the Social Security rolls in 1938 was Xenogianokopoulos.
Smith also says that a Fiji Island cricket player bore the 56-letter name Talebulamaineiilikenamainavaleniveivakabulaimakulalakeba.
The oldest Buddhist university in Thailand is Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University.
Above: In 1921 Laurence J. Daly, editor of the Webster Times, proposed lengthening the name of Lake Chaubunagungamaug to Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, which arguably makes it the longest place name in the United States.
Many locals just call it Webster Lake.
This just caught my eye: Competitive boomerang throwers participate in a number of events: distance, accuracy, trick catches, and so on. One of the most popular of these is maximum time aloft, in which the goal is to keep the boomerang in the air as long as possible with a single throw.
Unbelievably, the record here is 17 minutes and 6 seconds, set by John Gorski of Avon, Ohio, in 1993. At the time a respectable flight might last 30 to 40 seconds, but Gorski’s boomerang hit a thermal that carried it upward an estimated 200 meters, where it hovered for several minutes over the Olentangy River. It drifted south for 225 meters, then headed north again, descending to find Gorski, who managed to catch it 40 meters from where he’d thrown it.
“I couldn’t believe I’d got it back,” Gorski said later. “I thought, ‘I’m never going to see this boomerang again,’ but then it stopped drifting and just hung there.”
Tournament director Chet Snouffer called it “an unbelievable, once-in-a-lifetime experience — he caught the perfect wave and surfed it right into the record books.”
“I was tossing around the names of various wars in which both the opponents appear: Spanish-American, Franco-Prussian, Sino-English, Russo-Japanese, Arab-Israeli, Judeo-Roman, Anglo-Norman, and Greco-Roman. Is it a quirk of historians or merely a coincidence that the opponent named first was always the loser? It would appear that a country about to embark on war would do well to see that the war is named before the fighting starts, with the enemy named first!” — David L. Silverman
Guidelines for wearers of a Smokey Bear costume, from the U.S. Forest Service’s Smokey Bear FAQ:
Is the drawstring tucked in?
Is the zipper out of sight?
Are the buttons fastened?
Is the belt firmly fastened to the pants?
Are the pant cuffs neat?
Is the hat crown up?
Is the head straight on the shoulders?
Is the fur brushed generously?
Costumed users must not speak during appearances, must never appear in less than full costume, and must appear dignified and friendly. “Do not use alcohol or illicit drugs prior to and during the Smokey Bear appearance. This condition applies to uniformed escorts as well.”
pernicity
n. swiftness, quickness, agility
discoverture
n. the state of not having a husband
supersalient
adj. leaping upon
desponsate
adj. married
The Fenway Millionaires also have a ‘sleeper’ in Norm Zauchin, a massive fellow just out of the Army. Don’t underestimate him. When he was at Birmingham he pursued a twisting foul ball into a front row box. He clutched frantically. He missed grabbing the ball but he did grab a girl, Janet Mooney. This might not be considered a proper introduction by Emily Post but it worked for Zauchin. He married the gal. Nope. Don’t underestimate an opportunist like that.
— Arthur Daley, “Life Among the Millionaires,” New York Times, March 11, 1954
The motto of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is Essayons (“Let us try”).
Venezuela means “little Venice.”
The stilt houses of Lake Maracaibo reminded Amerigo Vespucci of the Italian city, so he named it accordingly.
