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'A' IS FOR 'BAMA'
Why are there no States in the U.S. that begin with the letter 'J'? It's a perfectly good letter prized by Scrabble players the world over. Taken alone or in concert with almost any of the other members of the known alphabet, 'J' is a solid citizen with an unblemished record and a clean, wholesome feel in the mouth. I'm not talking about those fruity, foreign imports such as 'jejeune' or 'jus', but respectable Ameri-Canadian words like 'jurisprudence' and 'jugular'.
Say 'J' out loud right now. Notice how it starts back at the top of your throat with an almost musical 'thud' - speech pathologists call that a 'glottal stop' - it races over your arched tongue, almost whimsically gathering a hint of sibilance as it goes, and then leaps forward out your gob with a joyous, long 'aayy'. Say it again. Don't whisper it - it doesn't work if you whisper it. There. Doesn't it feel good? I think so too.
'J' names are also good. You can't do better than Jack, John or Joe. And there are simply barrelsful of James' striding through U.S. history from its earliest days. You'd think that any number of nascent States would have been proud to adopt a James-ish sort of name. I can't think of a name right now, nevertheless, I know without a doubt that I would have given - and still would give - serious consideration to any State which proposed - or might still propose - a Jamesean alternative to some of those on the established list.
And it wouldn't even have to be James-like to be a good 'J' name. Many Americans and most New Jersey-ites, for example, already refer to the State as 'Jersey'. Why not just do away with the pretence that the State has any substantive connection with the tiny Channel Island after which it was named. Most folks probably have never heard of the place anyway. In all likelihood they think that the State was named after Jersey cows. The fact that the cows were named after the Island is of entirely no consequence and only serves to confuse things. The point is that the State legislature could easily knock off the superfluous 'New' tomorrow and nobody would turn an eyelash.
The 'Old' Jersey-ites, stuck somewhere in the late Middle Ages between England and France, wouldn't mind and, frankly, who would care if they did? There are, at last count, no more than two hundred and thirty-seven Islanders and none of them owns a National Basketball franchise or a satellite dish or even an SUV. They don't have an Army or an Air Force or access to nuclear weapons and, being essentially of good English stock, would prefer to pretend that they hadn't noticed the change. In fact if 'New' Jersey really wanted to they could hook the whole Island up to a couple of tug boats and drag it, cows and all, to just off the coast so that sunbathers at Atlantic City could have something to look at while they browned.
Not only would America finally have a 'J' State, but it would be a critical step towards reducing the inordinate number of 'N' States in the Union. There are fully eight of them. That's just too many don't you think? Of the eight, half are 'New' ones - and I think I've shown how easily that anachronism might be reconciled - and two are "North' States. The latter's desperate lack of imagination absolutely demands corrective action of the most extreme variety. It's a puzzle to me that they were allowed to perpetrate such an indignity in the first place. That they've managed to get away with it for so long is a prima facie case of Federal non-intervention at its worst. States rights be dammed. This slovenly behavior should not be tolerated by a right-thinking society. Let the Carolinas and the Dakotas fight it out and sentence the losers to 'Z' names for their crimes.
Once the 'N's' are taken care of, there might be sufficient impetus to move on to the far trickier 'M's'. There are eight of them as well. It's odd, don't you think, that nearly a third of States' names are lumped together right there in the middle of the alphabet. If you were to list all the States in order on a sheet of paper, affix it to the wall, and step back a few paces, as I have done, the complete lack of balance would stagger you. Use a bar graph and the effect is even more pronounced. Pie charts, incidental tables or Venn diagrams - no matter - the same ghastly story is writ large before you. Not only are there no 'J' States, there are no 'B' States either. No 'B' States. The blood runs cold.
There are also no 'E's', no 'Q's', no 'X's', 'Y's' or 'Z's' either. What a waste of letters. You'd think that the Founders of such States as Michigan or Minnesota, Alaska or Arizona, when they were deciding what to call themselves, might have noted that things were getting crowded where they were located in the alphabet and had second thoughts. It's not that there weren't and aren't vacancies. It's a puzzle that a Secretary of the Interior somewhere along the line didn't notice the trend and put a stop to it.
As the Union swelled towards the half-century mark you'd think that someone somewhere in the Nation's capital might have done some basic arithmetic and sensed the possibilities. Fifty States - twenty-six letters in the alphabet. That's near as dammit two States per letter! Leave out the 'Q' and you've got it. After all, if 'Q' isn't good enough for the phone company it shouldn't worry John _ Public.
Just think of it. With only minor adjustments and a modicum of friendly persuasion the USA could achieve the kind of symmetry that Plato only glimpsed in the shadows. De Tocqueville apparently thought about including a chapter about alphabetic imbalance in 'Democracy in America' but couldn't spell Mississippi out loud without giggling and abandoned the idea. Thomas Jefferson, it is rumoured, was concerned enough with the problem to include a paragraph in the Constitution which leaned toward doing away with State names altogether and numbering them by their proximity to Monticello, but was bought off by big money from Connecticut. Subsequent Administrations have either not noticed the issue or have claimed to have other, more pressing, business and opportunities were lost.
But now that America finds itself unchallenged at the top of the ziggurat perhaps the time is right to set the it's alphabetic house in order. The advantages are limitless. School children across the land would raise their voices in gladsome cry. Less time wasted memorizing the States - more time for hop scotch and jacks. Cub Scout leaders, Civics teachers and others with an excess of zeal and a pocket dictionary could spend their copious free time composing sentences which use, without repetition, all the States' letters. Seating arrangements in the Senate and the House would be a breeze - there'd be more leg room for those unfortunates from Nebraska. Hawaii would finally have a dance partner. And Utah. Well, Utah is Utah and let's just leave it at that.
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