Last week, we looked at these ladies’ spouses. I’m sorry, ladies – it’s now your turn.
Once again, though, this is really in response to all the fuss that the Obamas’ portraits caused. There’s not quite as much controversy behind Michelle’s as there is her husband’s. It’s still definitely a little different though:
Like Kahinde Wiley, the artist who painted the president’s portrait, Amy Sherald, tends to do regular black folk against very flat backgrounds. And, like Wiley’s, they may have surreal and political aspects as well as a certain iconic quality. Once again, I’m a big fan, but am not sure the style works so well for such high-profile subjects.
Two notes:
- Like last week, I am using the official portraits here
- I’m staying away from The Good as 1) they’re weren’t too many of ‘em, and 2) there were plenty of The Bad and the Ugly.
Jackie Kennedy
So, we all know she was a looker. And the painting actually does look like her. It’s fairly innovative too (it was done by the same artist who did her hubby, Aaron Shikler). That said, once again – JACKIE KENNEDY WAS NOT A REDHEAD!
Not too surprisingly, Jackie made my First Lady hotties post.
Edith Kermit Carrow Roosevelt
TR’s second wife was not unattractive, if in a somewhat plain way. What gets me here is the contrast between her rather plain-Jane photo and the elegant grand dame of her painting. That, in fact, will be something of a theme here for the next few FLOTUSes (FLOTi?)
Haven’t covered Edith before, so here’s a little trivia on her:
- She was the literal “girl next door” (her family and TR’s occupied adjacent brownstones in NYC)
- She had refused TR twice before he married his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee
- Teddy and Edith were married abroad, in London
- Edith was the first First Lady to have a social secretary and to hire a full staff for entertaining
- In retirement, she traveled to 20 different countries
Grace Coolidge
Ditto
BTW, that dog made it into this blog too. (There’s a photo of Grace with a pet racoon in that post as well.)
Enough about her pets. Here’s a little more about Mrs. Coolidge herself:
- She was the daughter of a Democratic political appointee
- She was the first FLOTUS to earn a college degree
- Before marrying, she was a teacher of the deaf
- She and Calvin’s first date was at a Republican rally
- She was a big fan of the Washington Senators and Boston Red Sox
Helen Herron Taft
Ditto in spades.
And here’s a little on Helen:
- She was known familiarly as Nellie
- Her father was a college classmate of Benjamin Harrison and a law partner of Rutherford B. Hayes
- She and William Howard Taft met at a bobsledding party
- She had a stroke while living in the White House
- She was the first First Lady to smoke
Mary Todd Lincoln
You know, if it weren’t for the roses, I’d swear these two could not even be related.
So, just in case you didn’t know anything about Mrs. Lincoln:
- She came from a slave-holding family, with several of her step-brothers dying for the Confederacy
- She spoke French, and lived there for awhile
- She was bipolar, and was committed to a mental institution for several months later in life
- Ruth Gordon, Julie Harris, Sally Field, and Mary Tyler Moore have all played her in film or on TV
Elizabeth Monroe
I’m sure that headband and those spit curls were all the rage, oh, back in the 1820s.
More on Mrs. Monroe:
- She was originally from NYC, and her father helped found the New York Chamber of Commerce
- She was 17 when she married, 10 years her spouse’s junior
- He was a foot taller than her
- She suffered from epilepsy, and was fairly frequently an invalid while First Lady
- And on a personal note, as a boy, I helped restore her Oak Hill home in Loudon County, VA.
Anna Harrison
Are those curlers?
Additional Anna addenda:
- She and hubby William Henry Harrison eloped (her father didn’t approve of her dating a soldier)
- The two had 10 children, all but one who reached adulthood
- She was the oldest woman to become FLOTUS, at 65
- First lady for only a month, she never lived in the White House (or in Washington, for that matter)
- By the way, I think it’s just a bow.
Julia Tyler
Quick, call a doctor. I think her neck is broken.
Poor thing. She was actually a lot more attractive than that:
Simpering aside, here are a few things we know about Mrs. Tyler:
- She caused quite a scandal by appearing in a newspaper ad with a young man and posing as the “Rose of Long Island” (the family actually went so far as to pack her away to Europe for a year).
- John Tyler proposed to her as president, and less than 6 months after his first wife died (scandal #2)
- She was only 22, and 30 years his junior (scandal #3)
- Tyler’s oldest daughter was only 5 years older than Julia (ditto)
- She converted to Catholicism later in life (scandal #4)
I’ve been dissin’ the poor ladies here, though I’ve just gotta ask … Were, perhaps, their husbands not so great shakes in the looks department as well? You bet your ass they were. In fact, they are some 1st ladies out there who pretty much put their husbands to shame.
Well, sounds like I might be topical for once. Indeed, Barack Obama’s official portrait has generated more than its fair share of buzz:
Different? Yes. Effective? I’m not so sure.
I actually like Kehinde Wiley’s stuff. Typically, he takes totally unknown people, poses them in art-historical heroic poses, then puts in a background that, though very busy, is also incredibly flat – all with a style that is pretty darn close to photorealism. It sounds weird, but it can also be pretty darn interesting:
Of course, he also did portraits of black women holding the decapitated heads of white women:
The art history reference here is supposed to be Judith and Holofernes (hey, I have an art history minor, okay?), but Holofernes is actually supposed to be a guy. Which makes this a little … um, scary?
Needless to say, there’s not a lot of other official presidential portraits like that out there. What is out there? Well, let’s take a look.
NOTE: I'm limiting these to official portraits. Otherwise, there are just too darn many to pick from.
Jefferson
I think Rembrandt Peale (no slouch as an artist) has done a good job portraying a very complex individual. I also this is just a bang-up classic portrait. I particularly love the dark colors and the utter simplicity. What a spotlight it shines on Jefferson.
Lincoln
This is my fave. I would imagine it’s the fave of a lot of people as well. I like how it really seems to capture Lincoln’s thoughtful character (and long before the hand on chin pose became a cliche). Notice, too how everything is focused on his very expressive face, putting all else into shadow. Finally, I also like the color combo of dark reds, greys , browns, and blacks.
But did you know that Lincoln also made it into my ugly president post as well?
TR
Another portrait that speaks reams about the sitter’s personality. John Singer Sargant (the most distinguished artist to attempt one of these portraits) has managed to capture Roosevelt’s confident persona perfectly.
I also like how modern this was for its time. The concentration is all on the figure itself. No distracting background frou-frou.
And ditto for this guy, unfortunately.
JFK
Once again, great psychological insight. It’s also very much not your standard portrait, but super-effective nonetheless. I’m also guessing that this was just as modern and different then as Obama’s is today.
That said, JFK was not a ginger. :^(
He did, however, make it into my Hall of Presidential Hotties.
Hoover
Indeed, not looking exactly like the guy is probably the biggest problem with these portraits. And that’s why I’ve focused just on the head, and also included a photo for comparison, for the rest of these.
Now, this does look like it’s a portrait of an older Hoover, but still …
Back to the Hall of Presidential Notties for this dude, I'm afraid.
Carter
Is it the eyes? The forehead? The nose?
I mean, I get that it’s Jimmy Carter. But something is definitely a little off here.
Since Jimmy hasn't been covered here before, let me offer a few random facts about our 39th president:
- He was the 1st president born in a hospital
- He's the only Naval Academy grad to become president
- He and his wife once lived in public housing
- He's had the longest retirement of any president ever
- The Carters recently celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary
Reagan
It’s the eyes, right? Gotta be the eyes. It’s always the eyes, isn’t it?
And it's back to the good-looking presidents.
GHWB
Haven’t a clue who that guy on the left is. I’m sure the two are related somehow though. Perhaps that’s George’s older country cousin.
Never covered this guy anywhere else, so ... Did you know that our 41st president:
- Was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and three Air Medals in WWII
- Played in the College World Series
- Got his BA from Yale in two and a half years
- Is a member of the US Golf Hall of Fame
- Is, at age 93, our oldest living president ever
Nixon
Now, we all know Tricky Dick had an unusual nose. But, I swear, that thing makes him look like Jimmy the Greek.
And here is some random trivia about this guy (Nixon, not Jimmy the Greek):
- He was named after King Richard I of England
- He turned down a scholarship to Harvard
- He played football and basketball in college
- He did local theatre, and met his wife Pat there
Ford
Well, well, what suave, semi-famous B movie leading man do we have here? It’s certainly not goofy, boring, stumblebum, ex-jock, possibly-not-too-bright Gerald Ford now, is it? No, couldn't possibly be.
Perhaps even harder to believe, though, is the fact that Ford made it into my presidential hotties blog.
You might also enjoy:
Everyone probably knows that Norway has something to do with the north, right? Or that Liberia comes from the Latin for “free.”
And then there’s Burkina Faso. Or Bosnia-Hercegovina. Or Uzbekistan. Or Papua-New Guinea. I’m afraid most of us don’t exactly speak those languages.
So, here are 5 maps that show what the Eastern Hemisphere would like if the countries’ names were all translated into English, from whatever their ultimate sources might be.
More maps:
Europe (i.e., "Wide Face")
A little explanation is probably in order for some of these:
- “10 arrows” referred to a confederation of 10 Hungarian tribes
- The name for Spain is actually from the Phoenician for “hyraxes” (they thought the rabbits they saw there looked their native hyraxes – whatever the heck a hyrax is)
- I could not fit in the itty-bitty Andorra (“scrubland”), Monaco (“single”), and Liechtenstein (“stone of light”) – if those are even really actual countries, that is.
Africa ("Dust")
More notes:
- I didn’t include the Ivory Coast or Central African Republic, as those seemed pretty obvious. At the same time, if I were to just go by their root meanings, they would be Ivory Flank and Central Dust Public Thing.
- Madagascar is actually a reworking of Mogadishu (which means “seat of the shah”). Some early explorer must have been very lost indeed.
- “Vexation” was coined by a rival kingdom on what must have been an obvious thorn in their side
- “Our canoes” supposedly came about when some European explorer dude asked the natives what their land was called, pointing broadly to the where the natives had beached their canoes. True story.
Middle East
- “Male descendent of Muhammad” refers to only the “Emirates” part of the UAE
- Copper was named after Cyprus, and not the other way around
- The Created’s are for Turkey and Turkmenistan (with the latter actually meaning “land of the ones who are like the created”)
Asia ("East")
- “China” comes from the Chin Dynasty, which comes from the Chin family, who come from the Chin Valley, which means …
- The Philippines are named after King Phillip II of Spain (the Philippines were originally a Spanish colony), with Phillip coming from the Greek roots hippos (horses) and philos (love).
Oceania
- The Marianas were named after Queen Mariana of Austria, widow of Philip IV of Spain (they too were once Spanish). And, if we read the state etymology post, we know that Mary comes from the Hebrew word for bitterness.
- The “indirect replies” were not given to some explorer, but are “in reference to the island's creation story involving the destruction of the giant Chuab.” Hey, thanks for nothing, Wikipedia!
- Kiribati is a native version of Gilbert (as in Gilbert Islands), who were named after British explorer Thomas Gilbert. The surname Gilbert is, in turn, from the first name Gilbert, which means “bright pledge” in some long-ago Germanic tongue.
Everyone probably knows that Ecuador has something to do with the equator, right? (It’s just the Spanish for that.) In a similar manner, you can probably figure out than Costa Rica means “rich coast” and Puerto Rico means “rich port.” You probably don’t need to be fluent in Spanish to figure those out.
But how about all those other countries? You might know that the US of A was named after one Amerigo Vespucci. But where did Amerigo come from? Yeah, Bolivia’s from Simon Bolivar, but what does his name mean? And God only knows where Guatemala and Uruguay come from.
So, here are a couple of maps that show what the Western Hemisphere would like if the countries’ names were all translated into English, from whatever their ultimate sources might be.
More maps:
North America
By the way, America is the Latin version of Amerigo, which is the Italian version of Emmerich, which means “rich house” (among other possibilities). Vespucci, on the other hand, means “little wasp.”
Central America & the Caribbean
An alternate source of Belize is a native version of Wallace, after Peter Wallace, a Scottish pirate who established the first settlement in the country. Wallace, in turn, means “Welshman.”
South America
Venezuela means “little Venice,” and was named by none other than Amerigo Vespucci (I tell you, the guy got around). The native houses on stilts above Lake Maracaibo reminded him of the Italian city.
Venice itself is traced back to a tribe called the Veneti. Their name, in turn, traces back to an Indo-European root meaning “love.” And all that probably means is that the tribe was friendly.
Everyone probably knows that Virginia was named after Elizabeth I, the “Virgin Queen.” And, if you know a little Spanish, you might know that Colorado is from the Spanish for “red” (chile colorado, anyone?)
I’ll bet you didn’t know, though, that Iowa means “sleepy ones.” Indeed, over half of our states derive their names from an Indian tongue. And if you don’t know any Algonquian, or Shawnee, or O'odham, you might have a little difficulty figuring all those out.
So, here’s what the US would like if the states’ names were all translated into English:
Couple of things ...
Note – There’s tons of disagreement on where some of these names come from. I feel I had to pick something, though, so I’ve gone with what I deemed the most likely.
Person – There’s no less than 15 states named after people (oh, and 1 god). Several of these are friendly people, but we’ve also got one enemy as well. Some are pretty generic (Carolina is from Charles, which basically means “man”), but we’ve also got some that are very particular – if not downright peculiar – including:
- Farmer (Georgia is from George, which is Greek for “farmer”)
- Thicket clearers
- Speaks normally
- Sleepy ones
Place – Looks like we’ve got 10 places (states, that is) named after other places. Some of these are pretty obvious – basically, adjective + land form – but some are rather out there:
- Bitter land – Mary is from the Hebrew word for “bitter” (now, why anyone would want to name their baby girl that is another matter entirely)
- Wheat sheaf town – Yup, that’s what our first president’s surname supposedly means
- Sheep pen woods – the “Penn” denotes someone who lived near a sheep pen; the “Sylvania” is just Latin for “woods.”
Water – Well, I guess you could say that a body of water is a thing. But there were just so darn many of ‘em (9), I thought I would separate 'em out. Nothing too odd here, and they’re all from Indian languages. By the way, there are also 4 that are related to water, including 2 islands, some river flats, and 1 “wooden boat.”
Adjectives – 8 states are simple adjectives, with 4 of those coming straight from the Spanish. “Of the war” is the oddest one here (and is actually from a Lord de la Warr, some Colonial dude).
Other thing – Maybe I should have called this “Miscellaneous.” We’ve got 2 winds, 1 tree, and 1 lime kiln. Yeah, that's pretty random.
More maps:
It’s a problem, right? I mean, look at this map of my home state:
Or, how about this map of the Detroit area:
And finally (and also to show it’s not just a Republican thing), this one of Maryland’s 3rd congressional district:
So, obviously there’s a problem here. But how to show it in a nice concrete, mathematical way?
Methodology
This one is actually pretty straightforward. Here’s what I did:
- Totally eliminated Louisiana (they have some weird system where that does not pit Republicans and Democrats against each other straight up)
- Calculated the percentage of Republicans in each house delegation (e.g., Mississippi, with 3 Republicans and 1 Democrat, comes in at 75%)
- Calculated the percentage of Republican votes cast in all house races (once again, Mississippi, with 681,000 Republican votes to 450,000 Democratic ones, come in at 60%)
- Subtracted the difference between the two, to see what kind of advantage dividing the state up into districts might have had (in Mississippi’s case, 15%)
- Ranked them all
So, not unlike comparing the electoral vote to the popular in the presidential election. But with this one being a lot more amenable to actual intervention.
Let’s see what we came up with …
"Dirty" Sweep
There are actually 11 states out there that are solely Republican or solely Democrat. Now, some of them have only 1 congressional delegate to begin with, so we really can’t point to gerrymandering in those instances. I’ve gone ahead and shown those here, but with light shading to distinguish them:
A couple of things to note:
- The Republicans have a distinct advantage, 11 to 6
- They are strongest in the Plains and mountains, the Dems in the Northeast
- Massachusetts wins the prize for 1-party state, with the highest number of delegates all of one party, at 9
Too True Blue
So, I think we can already see that this can go both ways. Now, here are the states that had 10% more delegates than they should have had, based on state-wide votes:
Note that I did eliminate the states with only 1 delegate (no chance of gerrymandering there).
Now, just to give you an idea of the strength of these differences, here’s a nice bar chart:
So, except for Nevada, pretty much the usual suspects, right?
Too True Red
And here’s what it looks like on the other side of the aisle:
And numbers wise:
No surprise there with the solid South, but how about all those states in the Midwest?
Just Right
So, is there anyone playing fair out there? Luckily, there are a few. Here are the 10 states that were under 10%, positive or negative:
And here’s how that shook out exactly:
Pretty scattered around, no? Also, some of these seemed pretty obviously purple – Illinois and Colorado, in particular. I really am wondering, though, what Texas (on one side) and New York (on the other) are doing here.
Final Thoughts
- Republicans win the gerrymandering sweepstakes, with a score of 22 states over the 10% threshold to 10 for the Dems
- New Hampshire wins the most gerrymandered state award with a difference of -48% (it has 2 Democratic congressmen, though only 52% of the state voted for a Democratic candidate)
- Arizona gets the least gerrymandered state award, with a difference of only 1% (Maine comes in 2nd with 2%)
- There are other, much more detailed ways to looks at this (ways that I will leave to the professionals), but I did think this was rather interesting as a quick read
Your favorite what? Why, my favorite demonyms.
Heck, not even the word editor in Blogger recognizes the term. All it really is, though, is a word for a person from a certain place. You know, a North Carolinian ... a Pittsburgher ... an Englishman (I am or have been all 3 of those, by the way).
Now, those are all pretty normal. There are, however, plenty of ... um ... rather interesting ones out there. Like these ...
Countries, States & Provinces
- Utah - Utahn
- Yukon - Yukonian
- Tuvalu -Tuvaluan
- St Kitts & Nevis - Kittitian / Nevesian
- Botswana - Motswana
- Burundi - Umurundi
- Lesotho - Mosotho
- Kiribati - i-Kiribati
- Vanuatu - Ni-Vanuatu
- Flanders - Fleming
- Isle of Man - Manxman
American Cities
- Memphis - Memphian
- Phoenix - Phoenician
- Annapolis - Annapolitan
- Minneapolis - Minneapolitan
- Indianapolis - Indianapolitan
- Tampa - Tampanian (the alternate "Tampan" just sounds too much like a feminine hygiene product)
- Saskatchewan - Saskatchewanian
- Halifax - Haligonian
- Little Rock - Little Rocker
British Cities
For some reason, the British Isles seem to have a corner on this stuff.
- Glasgow - Glaswegian (more familiarly, a Weegie)
- Galway - Galwegian
- Bath - Bathonian (so, what's wrong with Bather?)
- Cork - Corkonian (or Corker, for that matter?)
- Devon - Devonian (though I associate this more with the Paleozoic era)
- Exeter - Exonian
- Oxford - Oxonian
- Manchester - Mancunian (more familiarly, a Manc)
- Cambridge - Cantabrigian
- Leeds - Leodensian
- Newcastle - Novocastrian (yup, that's the Latin translation)
- Liverpool - Liverpudlian
Other Cities
- Monaco - Monegasque
- Hong Kong - Hong Konger (Hong Kongese is what I'm familiar with)
- Prague - Praguer
- Bucharest - Bucharester
- Damascus - Damascene (I mostly associate this with a form of metalworking)
- Macao - Macanese
- Hamburg - Hamburger
- Frankfurt - Frankfurter
- Oslo - Oslovian
- Corfu - Corfiot (like Cyprus/Cypriot, I guess)
More geography stuff:
