I remember there was a song about how to spell Mississippi that would play on some children’s show…Sandy Becker probably…in the early 1960s. One of these “bouncing ball over the lyrics” like Mitch Miller.
“M I S
S I S
S I P P I
It use to be so hard to spell, it used to make me cry.
But now I’ve learned this simple trick
there is no reason why”
Perhaps that helped elevate Ole Miss over the other 49 states in time counting.
Well Mr. Interrobang, I can’t complain! Mississippi using as a bench mark for one second was set by our society. You have know that society sets the standard e.g. supply and demand. It’s not official, yet, but perhaps I could potentially evaluate your question. My thesis (or theory to you) is that when something gains popularity, it just becomes a standard in our society. So firstly it is just exist exclusively to virtue of what our general public sets. I can’t really announce officially why this is really what it is.
So all in all on you behalf, I think you should look more into it instead of taking my word. If you really don’t know, then by all means take my word.
So, your answer to “why is something popular?” is to say that it’s popular, and if we don’t know why, then we should look into it? I’m not sure that really helps.
What I like is that it’s all one closed mouth vowel.
It’s also fun to shorten it to 'Sippi when you get past twenty.
I’ve found one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, etc., to be quite accurate, especially for longer time periods-much better and easier than putting of “one” before every “thousand” as mentioned so many times above. Lately I practice it when I’m electric toothbrushing and it blips every 30 seconds.
The counting practice is not named after the state. It’s named after the river.
Here’s 1936, possibly. Google books dates are not 100% reliable.
But it does seemto be valid.