Editing 2393: Presidential Middle Names

Jump to: navigation, search

Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.

The edit can be undone. Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision Your text
Line 1: Line 1:
 
{{comic
 
{{comic
 
| number    = 2393
 
| number    = 2393
| date      = December 2, 2020
+
| date      = December 3, 2020
 
| title    = Presidential Middle Names
 
| title    = Presidential Middle Names
 
| image    = presidential_middle_names.png
 
| image    = presidential_middle_names.png
Line 8: Line 8:
  
 
==Explanation==
 
==Explanation==
A list of what Randall perceives will be the prettiest presidential {{w|middle names}} after the inauguration on January 20, 2021. [[Joe Biden|Joe Robinette Biden]] (46th president-elect) will take the second slot bumping previous second-place holder {{w|Franklin D. Roosevelt|Franklin Delano Roosevelt}}, the 32nd president, back to third. {{w|Warren G. Harding|Warren Gamaliel Harding}}, the 29th president, remains in first. Robinette is Biden's [https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2008/08/joe_bidens_middle_name_is_robi.html grandmother's maiden name].
+
A list of what Randall perceives are the prettiest presidential middle names. President-elect Joe Robinette Biden has taken the second slot.
  
Overall, the ranking would not include every president, as many early presidents, such as {{w|George Washington}} and {{w|John Adams}}, lacked middle names. Some presidents were also more commonly known by their middle names as opposed to their first names, particularly John {{w|Calvin Coolidge}}, Stephen {{w|Grover Cleveland}}, Hiram {{w|Ulysses Grant}}, and Thomas {{w|Woodrow Wilson}}. In the case of Grant, the Senator who enrolled him at West Point messed up his full name as Ulysses Simpson Grant, hence he is widely known as ''Ulysses S. Grant'' with the spurious middle "S". Also, {{w|Harry S Truman}}'s middle name was just the letter S and was not an initial of a name; Truman's parents could not agree on which of his grandfathers' names to give him, but luckily they both started with the letter. One president has even changed his entire name: {{w|Gerald Ford}} was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., officially changing his name in 1935. The humor is based on the sheer oddity of ranking people by the perceived prettiness of their obscure middle names. There is no evidence in the comic for how Randall’s list would deal with these cases.
+
==Transcript==
 
+
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The title text announces that {{w|Rutherford B. Hayes|Rutherford Birchard Hayes}}, the 19th president, remains at or near the bottom.
 
 
 
===List of Presidents with middle names===
 
(updated for 2021, as the comic)
 
{| class="wikitable"
 
|+ (Ordered by middle name)
 
! President
 
! Presidential order
 
|-
 
|James ABRAM Garfield
 
|20
 
|-
 
|Chester ALAN Arthur
 
|21
 
|-
 
|Lyndon BAINES Johnson
 
|36
 
|-
 
|Rutherford BIRCHARD Hayes
 
|19
 
|-
 
|John CALVIN Coolidge
 
|30
 
|-
 
|Herbert CLARK Hoover
 
|31
 
|-
 
|Dwight DAVID Eisenhower
 
|34
 
|-
 
|Franklin DELANO Roosevelt
 
|32
 
|-
 
|James ("Jimmy") EARL Carter
 
|39
 
|-
 
|John ("Jack") FITZGERALD Kennedy
 
|35
 
|-
 
|Warren GAMALIEL Harding
 
|29
 
|-
 
|Stephen GROVER Cleveland
 
|22, 24
 
|-
 
|William HENRY Harrison
 
|9
 
|-
 
|George HERBERT WALKER Bush
 
|41
 
|-
 
|William HOWARD Taft
 
|27
 
|-
 
|Barack HUSSEIN Obama
 
|44
 
|-
 
|William JEFFERSON Clinton
 
|42
 
|-
 
|Donald JOHN Trump
 
|45
 
|-
 
|Franklin KENDRICK Pierce
 
|14
 
|-
 
|James KNOX Polk
 
|11
 
|-
 
|Richard MILHOUS Nixon
 
|37
 
|-
 
|John QUINCY Adams
 
|6
 
|-
 
|Joseph ("Joe") ROBINETTE Biden
 
|46
 
|-
 
|Gerald RUDOLPH Ford
 
|38
 
|-
 
|Harry S. Truman
 
|33
 
|-
 
|Hiram ULYSSES Grant (Ulysses SIMPSON Grant during his presidency)
 
|18
 
|-
 
|George WALKER Bush
 
|43
 
|-
 
|Ronald WILSON Reagan
 
|40
 
|-
 
|Thomas WOODROW Wilson
 
|28
 
|}
 
 
 
The Presidents without middle names — almost all of those before Grant, and a few a bit later — were George Washington, John Adams, {{w|Thomas Jefferson}}, {{w|James Madison}}, {{w|James Monroe}}, {{w|Andrew Jackson}}, {{w|Martin Van Buren}}, {{w|John Tyler}}, {{w|Zachary Taylor}}, {{w|Millard Fillmore}}, {{w|James Buchanan}}, {{w|Abraham Lincoln}}, {{w|Andrew Johnson}}, {{w|Benjamin Harrison}}, {{w|William McKinley}}, and {{w|Theodore Roosevelt}}.
 
  
==Transcript==
+
<div style="text-align: center;">Prettiest<br>
:<big>Prettiest</big>
+
Presidential Middle Names<br>
:Presidential Middle Names Official Rankings
+
Official Rankings<br>
:(Updated for 2021)
+
(Updated for 2021)
  
# Gamaliel (Warren Harding)
+
1. Gamaliel (Warren Harding)<br>
#<span style="color:red">Robinette (Joe Biden) '''(NEW!)'''</span>
+
2. Robinette (Joe Biden) '''(NEW!)'''<br>
#Delano (Franklin Roosevelt)<br>
+
3. Delano (Franklin Rooselvelt<br>
 +
</div>
  
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
[[Category:Comics with color]]
 
[[Category:Comics featuring politicians]]
 
[[Category:Rankings]]
 

Please note that all contributions to explain xkcd may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see explain xkcd:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!

To protect the wiki against automated edit spam, we kindly ask you to solve the following CAPTCHA:

Cancel | Editing help (opens in new window)