Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: A Trivial Matter

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Saturday, December 15, 2007

A Trivial Matter

In thinking about the current race for president, I noticed that we seem to have an unusual number of candidates whose surnames end in vowel sounds: Obama, Giuliani, Huckabee, Romney, Tancredo.

Only three presidents had surnames that ended with vowel sounds. Can you name them?
How about the four whose surnames ended with a silent e?
Sixteen of the forty-two men who have been president have surnames that end in what consonant?
What is the most common presidential first name? (There are six who share it.)

Answers in the comments section.

1 comment:

Charles Matthews said...: Monroe, McKinley, Kennedy

Monroe, Fillmore, Pierce, Coolidge

N: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, Buchanan, Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Benjamin Harrison, Wilson, Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton

James: Madison, Monroe, Polk, Buchanan, Garfield, Carter

And no, none of this means anything.; December 15, 2007 at 9:16 PM