Fundamentally Curious About.......

I am a fundamentally intrinsically curious person about all things related to the human condition and a few things related to how things work mechanically.   Why we humans do what we do, how we come to choose how we do what we do and how we come to choose who we do with what we do is fascinating.

On a recent road trip, my brain was seized with the question of how did each state come to be named? (I'd really like to know who selected the name of each state.......probably a committee????)  I was noting the state license plates of passing cars and was struck with how many state names end with the letter "a".  When Capt. SO and I reached our destination, we had some time to kill before our meet-up-with party arrived, so I began making a list of the states and what letter each state name ended with. As I had suspected, long before my list-making began, the letter "a" wins hands down for the most common letter to end with.  Understanding that few readers will share my penchant for this kind of trivial knowledge, I publish my findings below with some temerity (but not too much).

Sixty-two percent of state names end in a vowel, with a breakdown as follows:
a:   21
e:   4
o:   4
i:    3 (Hawaii wins for ending with two "i's".)
y:   2 (You know - a,e,i,o,u and sometimes "y")

Thirty eight percent of state names, therefore, end in a consonant, with a breakdown as follows:
n:   4
s:   5
h:   1
k:   1
t:    2
d:   2
g:   1


Two other items that I am fundamentally curious about:

1.  Why, if a person says, "Please pass the salt?", do most people pass both the salt and pepper?
2.  Why a local radio station doesn't pay more attention to whose voice is being used on back-to-back commercials.  A recent ad segment was played, using the same voice, using this sequence:  An ad for a funeral home promoting all of its services, followed immediately - with little or no pause - by an ad for a furniture store's scratch, dent, overstock and as-is sale.  At first I was stunned to think that the funeral home would advertise in such an insensitive way until I realized that the business promotion had changed.

Change the voice, for heaven's sake, so the listener knows that who-knows-what at the funeral home is not scratched, dented, overstocked, or as-is!

Ancora imparo - still curious