As is the case with President William Jefferson Blythe III.
That link goes to nothing today and the Australian Skeptics site returns no entries for that name combination.
There is nothing on Google today for “Harry Sergei Truman” except references to this post, which is being quoted as true. A search inside Alben (not Allen) W. Barkley’s autobiography, That Reminds Me, yields no hits for Sergei.
Since there is no evidence whatsoever that such a birth certificate exists and no biographer of Truman refers to Sergei as a middle name, I have to conclude that if such a posting ever existed it was a hoax. I wanted to get this post on the record so that when Google comes up with this thread in the future nobody can take it as confirmation of something so silly.
I’d just like to point out that the thread title is missing an apostrophe.
Harry “Seven” Truman?
SUSAN: Seven Costanza? You’re serious?
GEORGE: Yeah. It’s a beautiful name for a boy or a girl…
SUSAN: I don’t think so.
GEORGE: What, you don’t like the name?
SUSAN: It’s not a name. It’s a number.
GEORGE: I know. It’s Mickey Mantle’s number. So not only is it an all around beautiful name, it is also a living tribute.
SUSAN: It’s awful. I hate it!
GEORGE: (angry) Well, that’s the name!
SUSAN: (also angry) Oh no it is not! No child of mine is ever going to be named Seven!
GEORGE: (yelling) Awright, let’s just stay calm here! Don’t get all crazy on me!
Just surprised to be the first SDMB pedant to point out that Truman was not elected President until more that three years after the end of the second world war.
In modern usage (at least in the UK) the style is increasingly to omit those fussy dots after initials, so the question is academic. It’s the BBC, not the B. B. C.
You mean it should be Harry S’ Truman?
Well, the Brits just make a mess of putting commas where there should be periods and periods where there should be commas, so it may be for the best that they just get out of the business all together.
I guess this would be the attack of the zombie presidents. (runs)
Don’t be silly, everyone know’s apostrophe’s come before an S.
It’s Harry’S Truman.
bienville - We do? If we do then Americans are equally guilty, as I think we follow the same system as them in that regard. Funny European types, on the other hand…
I once had a chat with Gloria Steinem about how “Ms” should not have a period after it, as it is not an abbreviation, but a made-up word.
Mr. is short for Mister; Mrs. is short for Mistress or Missus. But *Miss *is not an abbreviation and neither is Ms. Gloria Steinem agreed, but said, “well, it’s about 30 years too late for me to do anything about it now.”
I think the man’s own practice would put to rest any pedantic objection. He used a period after the S. Period.
David McCullough’s biography (p. 37) says “It could be taken to stand for Solomon or Shipp, but actually stood for nothing, a practice not unknown among the Scotch-Irish, even for first names.”
Thanks for all your efforts working on this case over the last 10 years. I think we are getting closer to the truth. Keep up the good work.
Don’t be slly; it was FDR, not Truman, who had the Brains Trust. (runs faster)
Oh, my mistake. I thought our systems were flipped when working with numbers: one and one tenth being “1,1” for you guys, and one thousand being “1.000”.
I stand corrected. It seems you are not as ridiculous as I thought you were. Only just ridiculous enough to say things like “aluminium”.
‘It is true that in British style, quotes are normally inside the punctuation’, he commented.
“In American style, quote are normally outside.”
‘Hey, you use double quotes where we use single quotes.’
“‘Two countries separated by a common language,’ as Churchill said.”
‘I saw what you did there’.
“Should that be, ‘I saw what you did there.’?”
'Now I’m totally confused…"
Carp, carp, carp.
Obviously it is all a cover up. Truman was Russian. If not, why wouldn’t they just produce the birth certificate!