Saturday, October 02, 2010

The Alphabet of Nations

In the American Exceptionalism post below, Ian Wolcott remarks that there are "shockingly few country names beginning with the letter X."

This is true, although They Might Be Giants came up with an ingenious solution for their song 'The Alphabet of Nations'...

8 comments:

malty said...

It may only be a province but hey, nobody's perfect

David said...

How much more of this anti-Americanism are we expected to endure?

David said...

Obviously, that should be "rampant anti-Americanism."

Ian Wolcott said...

An elegant solution. Lovely.

Peter said...

They Might Be Giants clearly don't know their history.

Susan said...

Lovely idea, if a little xenophobic..

martpol said...

Peter, I love the fact that that article includes this sentence:

"In 684 BCE, Duke Aī of Cài was rude to Xī Guī, wife of the Duke of Xī."

Rudeness is a subtle issue not, I feel, accorded enough significance in most histories.

Peter said...

Martpol:

Yes, but my favourite is King Wu of Zhou. Dr. Suess couldn't have done as well on a good day.