A. 丸芝努止怒　B. 方農呂應　C. 万遅所濃　D. 仕曳八阿則沼

E. 安陀武受

Let’s start with Dragon this time, because . . . hey, why not?

Clearly Dragon’s entire knowledge of the colonial period (and perhaps all of U.S. history) is based on 1776.  There’s nothing wrong with this; we at the Wordsman fully support the policy of defining history through fiction.  On the other hand, it’s apparently not a good policy for getting your KYPC guesses in line.  D is depressing?  Well, I suppose there’s a swamp in there at the end, but it’s not Washington.  A is obnoxious?  It does end with “anger,” true, but the character right before that means “stop,” and wouldn’t “stopping anger” be the opposite of obnox . . . ion?  E’s not sulking; that first character means it is tranquility itself, though the third character means it is also a warrior.

Her two random guesses, however, were perfectly correct.  B, the square farm responding to the second half of a bathtub, is Monroe, and C, the ten thousand slow, thick locations, is Madison.  Maybe if she paid more attention in history class, she would have known that instead of having to simply pull it out of thin air.

Shirley clearly did pay attention in history class, because she at least knew that Washington comes first, at A.  She also got Monroe and Madison right, despite that fact that they (almost! look closely!) start with the same character.  And she knows that we all like Jefferson at D even if there’s not all that much to like.  I mean, look at it.  Pulling?  The number eight?  A nook or corner?  Not very exciting, really.  She even got Adams at E, a connection not made by every participant, though every participant did correctly identify him as being obnoxious or prickly.

A Fan, of course, had to get technical.  You can’t get away with anything in this family.  I mean blog.  That’s right.  Blog.  Anyway, shame on me for forgetting such legendary founders as Elias Boudinot or Nathaniel Gorham, because clearly the United States under the Articles of Confederation are something to be celebrated rather than forgotten.  His identification of A with Adams-Morgan is peculiar, because as I recall the subway system in Washington D.C. is relatively easy to understand, unlike in some other places (see: New York City).  Then again, if that’s what he thought it looked like, maybe he should have guessed Washington, because that would have been correct.  At least he knows good high-stepping when he sees it, and can tell the difference between the staid dignity of Washington University in St. Louis and the madcap antics of University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Unfortunately, none of these insights led him to correct answers.

Theoman got most of them, though Jefferson is the longest not because of the “f” but because of the “j” (actually, it is debatable whether or not Japanese in the time when man’yogana were being used had an “f” sound, but we don’t have to get into that).  His only stumble was over Madison and Monroe.  Are they really that different?  You can ask Shirley, I suppose.

But now it’s time for something new.  Enough history.  Are you ready for some FOOTBALL??? That’s right, it’s pigskin season, the perfect time to do a quiz on football teams . . .

Oh.  You say we already did that?  Hmm . . .

I know!  We’ll do a quiz on football team locations rather than names.  Now, most U.S. geographical locations would be written in Japanese with katakana, which would be boring and way too easy for Theoman.  We could do them in man’yogana again, but I think it’s time to switch things up.  This week’s KYPC challenge will be in . . . Chinese!  Where’s your advantage now, Theoman?  The principle is similar to man’yogana; the characters are chosen based on their phonetic (sound) similarity rather than their meaning.  The main difference is that, because Chinese has actually been used within the last millennium, these names might actually mean something to someone.  And by “someone,” I mean at least several hundred million people.

First up, the North.  Look for Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Green Bay, Minnesota, and Pittsburgh.

A. 克里夫蘭 B. 格林贝 C. 芝加哥 D. 辛辛那提 E. 底特律

F. 巴爾的摩 G. 匹兹堡 H. 明尼蘇達