Monday, July 9, 2012

Number nicknames: 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100 and 101

OK, this is it—the moment you've all been waiting for. (Or, most likely, not really.) After posting the nicknames for numbers 0-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, 61-70, 71-80 and 81-90, here are the last of my number nicknames...

91. The Lollapalooza

OK, here's the thing: the numbers in the 90s are neglected, so some of these are going to be a stretch. Like this one: 1991 was the year that the Lollapalooza music festival was born. OK, it's not Woodstock, but it's pretty cool. And Lollapalooza is fun to say. Go ahead, try it.


92. The Christopher Columbus

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

93. The Clinton

After the year he took office, 1993.

94. The Private Eye

This satirical British magazine uses the number 94 all of the time as a running gag. Why is that funny? Don't ask; they're British.

95. The Dolly Parton

For her song and movie 9 to 5. Get it? OK, stop rolling your eyes, I said the 90s were difficult.

96. The Platonic

Head-to-toe and back-to-back. If you need any more explanation than that, I don't know what to tell you.

97. The Wreck

This one comes from the famous wreck of the "Old 97," a Southern Railway train officially known as the Fast Mail. It ran from Washington, DC to Atlanta, Georgia. On September 27, 1903, the train derailed at Stillhouse Trestle near Danville, Virginia. The wreck inspired a famous ballad that is a staple of old-time music.

98. The Oldsmobile

The Oldsmobile 98 automobile was the flagship model of the Oldsmobile division of General Motors.

99. The Bottle of Beer on the Wall

OK, I could have gone with "The Gretzky" (his number was 99) or "The Luftballons." (Honestly, this number had more possibilities than the rest of the 90s put together.) But again my criterion was: which one is the most fun to say? And so the most inappropriate children's song ever written wins.

100. The Century

From the Latin centum, meaning one hundred: one hundred years, one hundred miles or one hundred of anything you like.

101. The Freshman

All introductory college classes end in "101": "English Composition 101," "Algebra 101," etc. This series of posts was "Number Nicknames 101." You been schooled, sucka. Peace!

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Number nicknames: 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89 and 90

We're almost there! In previous posts, I have posted the nicknames for numbers 0-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, 61-70 and 71-80. Here now are the nicknames for the next 10 numbers...


81. The Reagan

Ronald Reagan took office in 1981. If you look closely at the number 81, you can also see the blueprint for his "supply-side economics" policy (fat cats first, and those without come after).


82. The Airborne

After the famous 82nd Airborne Division of the United States Army, an infantry division that specializes in parachute landing operations.



83. The Barney Stinson

On the television show How I Met Your Mother, character Barney Stinson (played by the 100% awesome Neil Patrick Harris) constantly uses 83 for all of the random, made up numbers and statistics he quotes.




84. The Big Brother

Big Brother was the name of the dictator in the famous 1949 dystopian novel 1984 by George Orwell. In the novel, everyone was under constant surveillance by Big Brother's regime. Good thing that was only fiction and we're not under 24/7 surveillance everywhere we go these days. Heh heh. (Shhh... Big Brother is watching you...)



85. The Ochocinco

in 2008, NFL wide receiver Chad Johnson changed his last name to Ochocinco (Spanish for "eight-five"), after his jersey number 85. I was going to write "insane NFL wide receiver," but this is in no way atypical for an NFL wide receiver.



86. The Get Smart

In the wonderfully wacky spy show Get Smart, Don Adams played blundering superspy Maxwell Smart, also known as Agent 86.



87. The Gettysburg

Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" is one of the most influential speeches ever given. All most people can remember about it, though, is that it starts: "Four score and seven years ago..." For the math and history challenged among us, I'll just spell it out: a "score" is 20, so "four score and seven" is (4 x 20) + 7 = 87.



88. The Keys

A piano has 88 of them in total.



89. The Sooner

In the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889, people lined up to race to claim the free tracts of land. Some, however, snuck in and got there sooner, giving Oklahoma its nickname: the Sooner State.



90. The Right Angle

If you've made it this far, I'm guessing you like numbers well enough to understand this reference.



Next time: the final entry—numbers 91–101!

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Number nicknames: 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79 and 80

In previous posts, I have posted the nicknames for numbers 0-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60 and 61-70. Here now are the nicknames for the next 10 numbers...


71. The Blackbird

After the SR-71 Blackbird aircraft, one of the sweetest machines to ever flip gravity the bird.


72. The Par

While there are occasional exceptions, the total par (expected number of swings for an expert) for a typical eighteen-hole golf course adds up to 72.

73. The Sheldon

In Season 4 Episode 10 of The Big Bang Theory (the 73rd episode in the series), Dr. Sheldon Cooper (played by actor Jim Parsons), says: "The best number is 73. Why? 73 is the 21st prime number. Its mirror (37) is the 12th and its mirror (21) is the product of multiplying, 7 and 3. ... In binary, 73 is a palindrome, 1001001 which backwards is 1001001."

74. The Hurricane

A storm is considered a hurricane if it has sustained winds of at least 74 miles per hour.

75. The Diamond

A 75th anniversary is known as the "diamond anniversary."

76. The Trombones

After the finale "76 Trombones" from the musical The Music Man. The lyrics to the chorus, in part, read: "Seventy six trombones led the big parade / With a hundred and ten cornets close at hand..."

77. The Hockey Sticks

Because sevens look like upended hockey sticks.


78. The Old Record

The original standard playing speed for records was 78 rotations per minute. At this speed, you could fit about three minutes per side on a standard 10-inch record.

79. The Vesuvius

Mount Vesuvius famously erupted in the year 79, burying the city of Pompeii in hot, toxic ash in the process.

80. The Around the World

After the beloved Victorian era novel by Jules Verne (and subsequent film adaptations) Around the World in 80 Days.


Next time: numbers 81-90...

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Number nicknames: 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69 and 70

So far, I have posted the nicknames for numbers 0-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50 and 51-60. Here now are the nicknames for the next 10 numbers...

61. The Roger Maris

Maris hit 61 home runs in the 1961 baseball season, breaking the record of 60 set by Babe Ruth in 1927, which at that time was thought to be an unbreakable record.


62. The Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud founded the field of psychoanalysis—and that's fitting, buecause no one needed anaylizing more than Freud himself. Case in point: he was documented as having as irrational fear of the number 62.



63. The Gender Bender

A popular meme on the Internet, Rule 63 states: "For every given male character, there is a female version of that character; conversely for every given female character, there is a male version of that character."



64. The Checkerboard

There are 64 squares on one.



65. The Senior Citizen

Common convention holds that a person is a "senior citizen" at age 65 and older.



66. The Kicks

From the lyrics of the song "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66," an ode to the former U.S. highway that ran "from Chicago to L.A." before the advent of the Interstate highway system. Although it has been decomissioned, people still hold a fondness for the most classic of all American highways, and you can still travel parts of it where it has been preserved.



67. The Summer of Love

The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco (the center of the hippie movement) and to a lesser extent in other big cities across America.



68. The Prague Spring

The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II. It began on January 5, 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected the First Secretary of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and continued until 21 August when the Soviet Union and other members of the Warsaw Pact invaded the country to halt the reforms.



69. The Bill & Ted

In the time-travel movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, present-day Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) meet future versions of themselves. Their conversation is as follows...
Present Ted: OK wait. "If you guys are really us, what number are we thinking of?"
Future Bill and Ted: "69, dudes!"
Present Bill and Ted: "Whoa!"
[quadruple air guitar solo]



70. The Kelso

After the character Michael Kelso (played by Ashton Kutcher) from That '70s Show—not the central character, but probably the first one people think of when they think of that show.


Next time: numbers 71-80...

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Number nicknames: 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59 and 60

Last week, I posted the nicknames for numbers 0-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40 and 41-50. Here now are the nicknames for the next 10 numbers...


51. The Area

Named after Area 51, the top-secret U.S. military base in Nevada, where rumor has it they have hidden evidence of aliens from outer space.


52. The Pickup

After the "game" 52 Pickup, which you have to play every time you drop a deck of cards. (There are 52 cards in a deck.)



53. The Love Bug

After the movie of the same name and several sequels, which starred a sentient Volkswagon Beetle named Herbie.



54. The Studio

After the famous New York nightclub Studio 54, which was the epicenter of the disco scene in the late 1970s.



55. The Drum

The 55-gallon drum is a common container for storing industrial fluids like oil and solvents.



56. The Sammy Hagar

Before his days with the band Van Halen, the "Red Rocker" Sammy Hagar gained fame singing the song "I Can't Drive 55" (1984), protesting what was then the 55 miles per hour speed limit on U.S. highways. That presumably means that 56 miles per hour is his minimum.



57. The Heinz

The H.J. Heinz Company famously advertises themselves as having "57 varieties" of food products. They actually have many more, but the number was chosen arbitraily for their 1896 marketing campaign to demonstrate to the public that they had numerous products available.



58. The Patrick

In an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, Patrick Star claims that: "58 is like the luckiest number ever."



59. The Queensborough Bridge

In New York, the 59th Street Bridge is also known as the Queensborough Bridge.



60. The Minute

There are 60 seconds in one minute. (Also, there are 60 minutes in one hour, so either way you go from a minute, the number 60 is significant.)