Think of all that space and effort that would have been wasted if they'd written a piece about the mayoral candidates' platforms and experience! Another win for the NYT.
Such is the power of the New York Times that I heard this inane story discussed, without irony or sarcasm, on Air America yesterday evening.
I blame Freakonomics for this unfortunate column.
How long before parents with N-Z surnames start changing their names in order to give their kids a competitive edge?
The problem with developing a habit of critical thinking is that you read a story like this and you risk having your head explode. So jam-packed is this story with nonsense that it's almost beyond critique. One just doesn't know where to start.
This, by the way, is also my theory of why critical thinkers were unable to forestall or mitigate George W. Bush's political success.
Just to merge threads, I saw an economics paper about this somewhere. Econ authors are typically listed in alphabetical order, so when you refer to "Bubba et al", folks with lexicographically earlier names become more well known. So these guys did some statistics to look for an alphabetical effect in faculty appointments or something.
"Here's the point," Professor Krosnick said, invoking the name letter effect in a phone interview. "There are more people out there who prefer letters in the first half of the alphabet because there are more people with last initials in the first half of the alphabet. So that advantages all these candidates whose names are early in the alphabet."
Or maybe... since there are more people out there with last initials in the first half of the alphabet, there are more candidates with last initials from the first half of the alphabet? Just a thought.
There are so many unexplored angles to this story, I hope they expand it into a series:
- What is the signficance of the number of syllables in the candidates' names?
- Does a terminal vowel in the surname help or hurt a candidate, statistically speaking?
- What explains the bias against 2nd half of the alphabet candidates, and why did it emerge at the precise moment it did?
- Why is the same phenomenon not recognizable in Presidential elections?
But think of all the desperately important things about candidates that continue to go unremarked! Like eyebrow size, or toe length, or... okay, that's the list. I can't think of anything else that hasn't been considered by the NYT to be absolutely key to winning elections.
Candidates with names beginning with numbers or symbols haven't done very well either, historically.
Maybe a certain candidate should change his name to "Barack O. Bama".
5: No doubt this research was done in order to explain the puzzle of Milton Friedman's prominence.
Candidates with names ending with numbers or symbols, however, have been in power in most of the world for most of human history. George III, for example.
6,7: Someone needs to research how having an early-alphabet initial led to greater reproductive success on the veldt.
re: 14
People with shorter names clearly had an advantage on the veldt as their names could be shouted in warning ['Bob, a tiger!'] more quickly. This is why Sri Lankans settled in Ceylon, the lack of veldt meant their names were not a handicap.
I'm actually interested in the extremely stupid and subconscious things that influence elections, because they let us know how imprecise democracy is. The candidate listed first on the ballot generally gets a 5% advantage, which is why some counties shuffle the order randomly from ballot to ballot. If more counties in Florida did this, rather that list candidates alphabetically, Gore would have beaten Bush.
Apologies if this was mentioned in the article. I didn't read it. I just wanted to put in a little push for some Freakonomics style sociology.
Also, there is a long tradition in Chicago politics of changing your name to match the ethnic group of the district you are running in, which is why Chicago ballots are full of fun names like Stanislaw Wozzencheckski and Shamus McDuglan
I look forward to the numerology installment.
Maybe a certain candidate should change his name to "Barack O. Bama"
Helping him in one of those Southern states that he said black voters would put into play for him, as well.
16: You need to read this - it's really amazing. It actually fails to mention ballot position.
Candidates with names ending with numbers or symbols, however, have been in power in most of the world for most of human history. George III, for example.
Your example ends in the letter "I", which is a letter, not a number or symbol.
'Bob, a tiger!'
But they had commas? I find your theory unconvincing.
Why do we never hear about the first nine members of the Malcolm dynasty?
That's it - I'm changing my last name to Aaa. Just Aaa. No bitching about spelling, always first in the phone book, always first in line, etc.
max
['Maybe that's too long.']
26: Who's going to be your running mate?
19: Reached at his Chicago law firm -- Hughes, Socol, Piers, Resnick and Dym...
The guy in question being Dym.
Having your name at the start of the alphabet was essential on the veldt because when they caught a mastodon they worked down the bush telegraph directory, signalling people to come to the barbie. And there's only so much meat on a mastodon.
Then there's the area of sports. Success, or at least recognition, is greatly enhanced by having a name with an "oo" sound.
26: Who's going to be your running mate?
B!
max
['Of course.']
Econ authors are typically listed in alphabetical order
This is generally true in linguistics as well, much to the consternation of Arnold Zwicky.
31: He should change his name to "Arnold Z. W. Icky".
16: There's at least one really interesting case in which a losing candidate tried to get the results overturned because the district didn't follow it's own name-rotation rules and he was within the margin potentially caused by ballot-order effects. I'm fairly certain he lost and can't remember much else about it.
I just got an alphabetical list of current members of the House of Representatives. A-M covered the first 291 names.
Of the 14 presidential elections held since the Truman administration's waning days in 1952, first-half-of-the-alphabet candidates won 10 times.
14 * (291 / 435) = 9.3.
But why let that get in the way of a good story?
OK, I suppose that sample might be subject to the same effect. Still, inane.
But, of course, your brain doesn't store the alphabet in an iterable; you can randomly address it. Pshaw, there goes another veldt theory - that of the apes struggling to save Vic from the tiger (".........
>>>
>>>
>>>
......Vic, a tiger!")
until evolution invented quicksort.
That's a creative calculation to apply.
There's circumstantial evidence that names in places with a high Anglo population tend to be front loaded anyway, Smith notwithstanding. Last time I lived in the great wen, the first two volumes of the phone book were A-D and E-K, and the last two were L-R and S-Z.
11
Maybe a certain candidate should change his name to "Barack O. Bama".
Likely response: "That guy who played the Hulk is running for what?"
(OK, "likely" is putting it too strongly. Still, I know I thought that would too much like Eric Bana.)
My Dad had a business at one point, and he chose a name that started with the letter 'A' so that it would be one of the first entries in the yellow pages.
their names could be shouted in warning ['Bob, a tiger!'] more quickly
I adored the story Rikki Tikki Tembo when I was a child. Apparently I still do.
Poor little Rikki-Tikki-Tembo-no-sa-rembo-chari-bari-ruchi-pip-peri-pembo had such a long name that when he fell into the well, his friend couldn't call the alarm sensibly enough without running out of breath, so Rikki Tikki Tembo didn't get rescued in time.
Apparently there are variations on the name. The one above I danced about the house sing-songing (had a record reading the story aloud to accompany the book).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikki_Tikki_Tembo
OK, second time around with the alumni directory of my graduating class. This should be biased the other way if anything, with all the Qiaos and Wangs and Yangs. 63% are
In Scandinavia about 1975 Don Cherry (of Ornette Coleman) did an avant-garde-jazz / proto-world-music version of Tikki-tikki-tembo. It was tremendous fun.
The Tikki-tikki-tembo wiki is silly. Tikki-tikki-tembo is American pop folk, whether or not it is based on something Japanese or Chinese. And inaccurate, inexact transmission is what folk tales are all about.
44: How square am I? I dig the Shari Lewis version.