Futility Closet

You can start fights among copyeditors by asking them how to punctuate Harry Truman’s name.

The 34th president had no middle name — just the letter S. So the question is, do you add a period afterward? Purists say no, it’s not an abbreviation. Pragmatists say yes, if you omit the period then some readers will stop at the “error.”

Truman himself usually signed his name with a period, but he once remarked that it should be omitted. That’s why, to this day, some newspapers refer to him as Harry S Truman.

Michael Jordan has appeared on a Wheaties box 18 times.

There’s a snack bar in the courtyard of the Pentagon.

It’s called the Ground Zero Cafe.

Dates of first domestication:

• Sheep, goat, pig: 8,000 B.C.
• Cow: 6,000 B.C.
• Horse: 4,000 B.C.
• Donkey, water buffalo, honeybee: 4,000 B.C.
• Chicken, cat, llama: 3,500 B.C.
• Silkworm: 3,000 B.C.
• Camel: 2,500 B.C.

Dogs, by far, are man’s best friend. Some estimates put them with us as early as 150,000 B.C. It’s thought that scavenging wolves grew less fearful of humans, and we found they could help with hunting and warn us of approaching enemies. “To his dog, every man is Napoleon,” wrote Aldous Huxley. “Hence the constant popularity of dogs.”

Shortest-reigning popes:

• Urban VII (elected in 1590): 13 days
• Boniface VI (896): 16 days
• Celestine IV (1241): 17 days
• Sisinnius (708): 21 days
• Theodore II (897): 21 days
• Marcellus II (1555): 22 days
• Damasus II (1048): 24 days
• Pius III (1503): 27 days
• Leo XI (1605): 27 days
• Benedict V (964): 33 days

1978 is called the “year of three popes”: Pope Paul VI was succeeded by John Paul I, who lived only 33 days. John Paul II succeeded him.

vicambulate
v. to walk about in the streets

“Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.” — Napoleon Bonaparte

The Mad Gasser of Mattoon was a mysterious figure who haunted Mattoon, Ill., in the summer of 1944.

Typically, homeowners would report awakening to a sweet odor, then feeling nausea, dizziness, headaches, breathing difficulty, or a feeling of paralysis. Some saw a tall figure dressed in black fleeing their property after the attack.

Police and citizens patrolled the streets, and the newspapers printed several sensational accounts, but the police never found a suspect. The attacks stopped after Sept. 13, as mysteriously as they had begun.

The longest word in the English language is FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION.

It means “the act of estimating (something) as worthless.”

Disneyland would fit in Disney World’s parking lot.