(no subject)

I've oft commented how every time you try to play bridge, there's some theme that permeates the evening. Of course, in any statistical process, you expect clustering, but the more specific it is, the funnier it is.

That night's theme was "Playing a 3NT with a strong hand and a void in dummy." The first time, 3NT, I had a void, I was dummy. The following hand, 3NT, I had a void, I was dummy. The hand after that we broke the pattern -- the opponents played 3NT with a void in dummy instead.

Come to think of it, is that so bad? Obviously an unbalanced hand is a lot better in a suit contract. But if declarer has shown a stop for the void suit, and there's a good chance that the partnership will have nine or ten cards in one suit, it might work. (Better if dummy has entries, of course.)

Stephen Fry: Quite Interesting

Amongst other things, yesterday cuddly sunflower introduced me to QI, Stephen Fry's quiz program. Not quite the same as the one in the St. Trinian's film, more like Have I Got News For You. It was indeed ever so funny :)

However, a couple of things bothered me.

Woodpecker Tongues

The woodpecker's tongue is nearly as long as it is. The obvious question is, "How does it fit in the mouth, then?" Is answered with the obvious but surprisingly apparently true answer that "Its wrapped round the brain, duh."

This fact is often touted in evolutionist/creationist debates although I'm not sure on what side. Should the argument be that "Wrapping your tongue round your brain is stupid, no-one could have thought that up, not a billion years!" or "Wrapping your tongue round your brain is stupid, that could never have happened by chance, not in a billion years!" :)

(The actual case appears to be slightly complicated. I didn't really care, I just thought it was funny,though its a bit interesting.

The creationist argument is that this is an example of a creature which can't have evolved because any intermediate forms would have tongue wrapped halfway round the brain, clearly useless. The evolutionist rebuttal is that wrapped round is a poor description, a better one is that the muscles behind the tongue lengthened, eventually going all the way round, and you can actually observe this change as a single woodpecker grows to maturity. However, I didn't bother analysing the argument in detail. I expect the second explanation is correct, and it sounded plausible at first glance, but I haven't actually checked.)

Four of the Fifty U.S. States are Commonwealths

The other thing was the old chestnut about how many US states there are. The question is confused because several of them are commonwealths. I ignored this trivia question for ages, not knowing anything about it, but when it came up there, I finally felt impelled to look up a definitive answer.

Before that, I couldn't even have told you the traditional number with confidence. For the record, there are:

* 50 entities commonly referred to as states, including Alaska and Hawaii not contiguous with the rest
* DC
* Puerto Rico
* Some incorporated territories (mainly inhabited atols)
* Some unincorportated territories (mainly uninhabited atols)
* Some regions that may overlap with an above case (water, indian reservations, etc)

People often seem to think there are 52 states. Perhaps because 50 sounds too round a number. There are a couple of suggestions for why this is. (1) People remembered Alaska and Hawaii, but thought they were as well (2) That's how many cards there are in a deck.

I certainly suffered from the second factual false friend :)

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread212402/pg1 has a humorous description of the situation, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_divisions_of_the_United_States a more sober one.

However, the "trick" question is about the states.

How many US states are there in the USA?

This typically crops up in trivia questions and the like. It generally goes something like,

Person A: How many US states are there in the USA?
Person B: 50
Person A: Ha ha! You're wrong! [1, 2, 3, or 4] of them are Commonwealths!

And sometimes you get:

Person C: Ha ha! No, you're wrong!

QI stopped at line three. (Did I remember that correctly?) But I think I disagree, I think its best to say there are 50. Although, of course, if anyone ever asks the question, the Commonwealth of Virginia had better be the first thing out of your mouth if you guess that's what they meant, or they'll ignore your citations and consider you an idiot for the next week.

As I understand it, "state" was originally referring to a political entity the way "country" does. The articles of independence talk about severing ties from the state of Britain.

I use Virginia as an example. There seem to be two possibilities.

(1) Virginia is a commonwealth, not a state, although shares all properties with a US State.
(2) People are fooled into believing in false dichotomy that it must be a commonwealth OR a state, the Commonwealth of Virginia is a state the way the Kingdom of Great Britain is a country.

Or possibly somewhere in between. However, the second case looks most convincing to me.

Evidence

As far as I can see, the evidence that Commonwealth of Virginia can be described as a US State is:

* It was a state in the sense the framers of the constitution were thinking of, a political entity
* It signed the Articles of Confederation that referred to the thirteen uniting units as states
* The constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia refers to itself as a state in at least one section
* It is one of the entities having all the rights and responsibilities of a state as described in the US constitution
* It is commonly referred to as a State, official documents mentioning US States don't have to add "and commonwealths"

And the evidence that it isn't a state:

* It doesn't use "State" in its official title, whereas other states do.

It comes down to the meaning of the words. I think the meaning I'm thinking of for "state" is the only reasonable one in the context, and normally intended. I think "commonwealth" is more fuzzy, to some extent it describes entities having some philosophy, but a lot it just refers to several sets of entities that have come to be identified in that way. Like, if you ask "How many kingdoms are there," you might have to ask "Do you meant, how many countries technically ruled by a monarch? Or how many countries called 'kingdom'?"

If so, it sounds to me like the Commonwealths mentioned are definitely *also* states. So mentioning this distinction is sensible, but "50" is the only correct answer.

However, I've probably missed *something*, possibly something important. Can anyone add anything? Does the constitution treat them in any way differently (I thought I remembered that it did, but couldn't find anything.)

ETA: Followup post here