# Do people know about Grover Cleveland's nonconsecutive-ness? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 16, 2006, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-grover-clevelands-nonconsecutive-ness/352861 "2006-04-16T06:02:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-grover-clevelands-nonconsecutive-ness/352861/41 "2006-04-19T14:07:31Z")
> [@Petey](#): > > Probably because the presidential inauguration is the main event. Right. So the VP swearing-in should be the opening act. Can you imagine how demoralizing it must be for the VP, when 3/4 of the crowd has gone over to Georgetown for last call, and there’s no one there but his mom and few friends? ---
**Author:** ![Mayo\_Speaks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mayo\_Speaks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mayo_Speaks)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-grover-clevelands-nonconsecutive-ness/352861/42 "2006-04-19T15:09:09Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > Right. So the VP swearing-in should be the opening act. Can you imagine how demoralizing it must be for the VP, when 3/4 of the crowd has gone over to Georgetown for last call, and there’s no one there but his mom and few friends? And a few dozen “golden circle” level campaign contributors? And a hundred lobbyists? Sometimes, I’m cynical. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-grover-clevelands-nonconsecutive-ness/352861/43 "2006-04-19T16:09:58Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > …and there’s no one there but his mom and few friends? “Oh, didn’t little Spiro look so grown up today?” ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-grover-clevelands-nonconsecutive-ness/352861/44 "2006-04-19T16:14:13Z")
> [@Shirley Ujest](#): > > When I think of **Grover Cleveland** I think immediately of **Bathtubs**. (Psst…maybe I’m being whooshed, but that’s Taft.) Oh, and the trust-buster was Teddy R. They all had those great mustaches, so I can see the confusion. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-grover-clevelands-nonconsecutive-ness/352861/45 "2006-04-19T19:44:36Z")
If a woman marries Joe; divorces him, marries Jim; divorces him; then re-marries Joe, she’s only had two husbands. She’s had three weddings but two marriages. Or, if I eat half a sandwich for lunch, save it for next days’ lunch and have cereal for breakfast in between, the sandwich made two meals but it was still the same sandwich. Anyway, GC was the subject of my first thread years ago: which presidents personally killed anyone. We came up with Jackson (duelist), GHB Bush (WWII pilot), and Cleveland (sheriff of Buffalo required to pull the trap at a dual hanging). ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-grover-clevelands-nonconsecutive-ness/352861/46 "2006-04-19T21:03:34Z")
> [@garygnu](#): > > I know about the non-consecutiveness, but I remember Grover Cleveland mainly because his name is a Muppet and a city in Ohio. While the Muppet may have been named after the president, however, the city was named for [Moses Cleaveland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Cleaveland) years before Grover was born. **bup** : Besides the story of Taft getting [stuck in the White House bathtub,](http://www.usatrivia.com/biotaft.html) **Shirley** may have been thinking of H.L. Mencken’s hoax crediting [Millard Fillmore](http://www.sniggle.net/bathtub.php) with the installation of the first bathtub in the Executive Mansion. Or perhaps she somehow knows a Cleveland anecdote that’s escaped our attention… Another interesting bit of trivia about Grover Cleveland is that his actual first name was Stephen. Other presidents who used their middle names as primary identifiers were John Calvin Coolidge, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, and Hiram Ulysses Grant (who became known as [Ulysses Simpson Grant](http://www.civilwarhome.com/grantbio.htm) by virtue of an error, and kept the name, as I’ve heard, partially because he deemed the monogram HUG inferior to the new initials “U.S.”). ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-grover-clevelands-nonconsecutive-ness/352861/47 "2006-04-19T22:11:47Z")
Wow, I feel like a dummy. I didn’t remember that bit of trivia at all. And this is after I railed against people not knowing that Booth DIDN’T act alone in the Lincoln Assasination. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-grover-clevelands-nonconsecutive-ness/352861/48 "2006-04-19T22:40:38Z")
> [@Sternvogel](#): > > While the Muppet may have been named after the president, however, the city was named for [Moses Cleaveland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Cleaveland) years before Grover was born. I didn’t mean to imply any of the names were eponymous, just homographic. Cool info, though, and I love why they dropped the first “a:” > [@](#): > > The spelling of the city’s name was later changed to “Cleveland” when, in 1831, an “a” was dropped so the name could fit a newspaper’s masthead. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-grover-clevelands-nonconsecutive-ness/352861/49 "2006-04-20T01:13:53Z")
> [@Sternvogel](#): > > Other presidents who used their middle names as primary identifiers were John Calvin Coolidge, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, and Hiram Ulysses Grant Anna Eleanor Roosevelt. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-grover-clevelands-nonconsecutive-ness/352861/50 "2006-04-20T02:44:49Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Anna Eleanor Roosevelt. Well, they do say that she pretty much ran the country during Frank’s last term 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-grover-clevelands-nonconsecutive-ness/352861/51 "2006-04-20T13:08:58Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > Well, they do say that she pretty much ran the country during Frank’s last term 😉 They say that about Edith Wilson. Eleanor was the original Hillary Clinton: not just an ornament to the White House, but a political activist in her own right. Coincidentally my maternal grandmother’s name was Anna, and my Mom, born when Eleanor Roosevelt was in the White House, was given the name Eleanor as a family tradition. It helped that we have always been staunch Democrats. In the 1930s someone pointed out to my grandmother that she qualified and could join the Daughters of the American Revolution. Her answer: “Why would anyone _want_ to?” I love that old lady, a Democrat to the end. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Petey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f1d935/32.png) [@Petey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petey)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-grover-clevelands-nonconsecutive-ness/352861/52 "2006-04-20T13:41:04Z")
> [@Sternvogel](#): > > Other presidents who used their middle names as primary identifiers were John Calvin Coolidge, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, and Hiram Ulysses Grant Ike was born David Dwight Eisenhower. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-grover-clevelands-nonconsecutive-ness/352861.md?page=2)