Ross’s Sedge is an English name with a letter repeated four times. Carex rossii is a North American pioneer species in areas with little or no established vegetation, or in places where disturbance has occurred. It flowers in May and June.
In Welsh place names, the letter L can repeat four times (Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch)., and also in the plausible personal name Bill Lloyd. Or a tall llama.
The Romanian word for “babies” is “copiii”, with three successive I repetitions… German words can have triple-S (“fussstrasse”, street for pedestrians), but conventionally uses a diffefen symbol for many double-S usages.
In Thai, the letter ร is a consonant sounded ‘R’. But when there are two consecutive such letters (รร), no ‘R’ is sounded — the รร is just a schwa-like vowel.
The Schwa phoneme is used in very few languages, which accounts for much of the difficulty foreigners have in learning a perfect English accent. They can’t resist giving every vowel a distinct vowel sound. At the same time, English speakers have a tendency to allow the schwa to creep into unstressed syllables of foreign languages, which native speakers do not hear correctly.
The Native American Party, renamed in 1855 as the American Party and commonly known as the Know-Nothing movement, was an American political party that operated nationally during the mid-1850s. It was empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish Catholic foreigners, whom they saw as hostile to republican values and as being controlled by the Pope in Rome.
Azariah Cutting Flagg was elected Comptroller of the State of New York in 1833, an office in which he would be succeeded by Millard Fillmore. Fillmore went on to be elected President of the Unites States. After his term of office, as ex-president, Fillmore was nominated in his absence, while out of the country, to be candidate for president in 1856 for the “Know-Nothing” Native American Party. He lost.
Actress Patricia Neal, 1926-2010, was married to Roald Dahl.
Actress, comedian and author Patricia Neal, a different person, was born in 1944 and is supposedly alive and well. This Patricia Neal wrote the 1987 novel, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. She was nominated in 1991 for the screenplay adaptation of Fried Green Tomatoes.
When the second Patricia Neal was establishing her acting career, the first Patricia Neal was already established and had won the Best Actress Academy Award in 1963 for her role as Alma Brown in Hud. So, the second Patricia Neal changed her name to Fannie Flagg.
Queen Elizabeth has two different ancestors named Lady Essex of Warwick, both with Rich as their maiden surnames. The first Lady Essex is the grandmother of the second Lady Essex. Both Ladies are descended from King Henry VIII.
Richard Rich was one of Henry VIII’s least favourable creatures, being involved in the trial of Sir Thomas More (and probably giving false testimony), and also personally torturing a woman in the Tower of London. He was also involved in the fall of Thomas Cromwell. He became the Speaker of the Commons and later the Chancellor of England.
Out-of-play 1:
Fillmore was never elected President. He was Taylor’s Vice-president, and succeeded on Taylor’s death.
Out-of-play 2:
Can you provide further information? I can’t find anything about these two. Thanks.
Richie Rich is a character in Harvey Comics. Dubbed “the poor little rich boy,” Richie is the only child of fantastically wealthy parents and is the world’s richest kid. For the Ape Entertainment comic book series debuting in 2011, the character was updated by emphasizing his altruistic side: “A mix of James Bond and Indiana Jones with the bank account of Donald Trump, Richie Rich is an altruistic adventurer who travels the world helping the less fortunate!”. The new Richie was joined by updated versions of his robot maid Irona and his butler Cadbury.
Harvey is a 1944 play by the American playwright Mary Chase. It has been adapted for film and television several times, most notably in a 1950 film starring James Stewart. Chase received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the work in 1945. The play/movie is about Elwood P. Dowd who claims to have an unseen (and presumably imaginary) friend Harvey — whom Elwood describes as a six-foot, three-and-one-half-inch tall ‘pooka’ resembling an anthropomorphic rabbit.
In 1991, cook and author Susan Spungen joined a fledgling magazine, Martha Stewart Living, as founding food editor and was charged with creating a test kitchen and food department. In the beginning, she did everything: conceived, developed and tested recipes, styled the recipes for photo shoots, then explained the total concept to readers. The position was a perfect pairing of Spungen’s love of food and clear artistic vision. Her artistic eye and penchant for quiet elegance became the defining factor in the much-emulated, bright, clean look of the Martha Stewart brand.
Susan’s sister Nancy Spungen is probably better known.
Nancy Spungen, girlfriend of Sex Pistols bass player Sid Vicious, was nicknamed “Nauseating Nancy” for her frequent high public drama of violence and verbal abuse. At 17, Spungen had left home for New York City and became a stripper and a prostitute. She was murdered by a knife stabbing at the age of 20. Sid Vicious was charged with the murder but died of a heroin overdose before the trial. He was 21.
In her book And I Don’t Want To Live This Life, Nancy’s mother Deborah Spungen writes that Nancy told her “I’m going to die before age 21. And I’m going to make the headlines.” While she believed the first part because Nancy had always been mentally unbalanced and never was happy, she couldn’t image how her daughter’s death would be of interest to anyone.
The brothers Alan Stewart of Darnley, John Stewart of Pierston, and their cousin Robert II King of Scots each has many living agnatic descendants. DNA testing has demonstrated that the Y-chromosome mutation known as R1b-S781 must have occurred in John Stewart of Bonkyll (who suffered his death at the Battle of Falkirk commanding the archers of William Wallace’s army) specifically — descendants of Alan and John have it; those of Robert don’t.
ETA: Mentioned John’s death after being Ninja’ed while appending the following descent list.
Out of Play:
The younger Essex Rich was daughter of the 3rd Earl of Warwick. The other Essex was daughter of Robert’s grandfather, the 1st Earl.
Here is the descent line from Henry VIII to the present Monarch:
(1) Henry VIII Rex
(2) Katherine Carey
(3) Lettice Knollys
(4) Penelope Devereux
(5) Essex Rich
(6) Anne Cheke
(7) Essex Rich
(8) Mary Finch
(9) Dorothy Savile
(10) Charlotte Elizabeth Boyle
(Charlotte has three other lines of descent from Lettice Knollys)
(11) Dorothy Cavendish
(12) William Cavendish-Bentinck
(13) Charles Cavendish-Bentinck
(14) Nina Cavendish-Bentinck
(14) Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
(15) Elizabeth II Regina
Only the first step is controversial. However, with much circumstantial evidence and contemporary testimony, I think most experts now agree the King fathered both Carey children. Wikipedia is more cautious:
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
Some contemporaries also asserted that Catherine was an illegitimate child of Henry VIII which would make her Elizabeth’s half sister. Although this was never acknowledged by the King, Catherine was given deference by the Court as she aged and came to resemble Henry.
[/QUOTE]
Note that the King could not acknowledge these children: It would annul his marriage to Anne on the same grounds Henry used to annul his marriage to Catherine: Marriage is disallowed if groom or bride has previously fn*ted with bride or groom’s sibling.
In an article in People magazine dated October 20, 1986, Baby M’s biological (surrogate) mother Mary Beth Whitehead stated about the Sterns pointing out truthfully that her son Ryan was living with his grandparents in Florida: “Now they’re trying to use it against me, saying, “Her son wasn’t even living with her.” I think it’s cruel to hurt a child just to try to hurt me.”
Three month’s earlier, in a phone call taped by William Stern, Whitehead had threatened to tell the judge that her daughter Tuesday had told her father (Mary Beth’s husband) Richard Whitehead that William Stern had sexually molested her. Like that isn’t of being cruel just to try to hurt someone!
William “Bill” Stern was a pioneer sportscaster in the early days of broadacasting. He did play by play of football games as early as 1925, and was at the mike for the first baseball game ever televised in 1939. He remained a figure synonymous with sportscasting into the 60s, often embroiled in controversy over some of his outspoken remarks.
Sigmund Stern was a nephew of Levi Strauss and a philanthropist in San Francisco. Stern Grove, a park in The City’s south west that long ago was a cow pasture where wild cattle used to roam, is named after him.
Orson Welles was the father of three legitimate daughters, who remember him as a usually absentee but never stern father. His only son and his only grandchild were illegitimate. He was the biological father of Sir Michael Lindsay-Hogg (5th baronet), legally the son of Sir Edward Lindsay-Hogg (4th baronet) who was married to his mother, actress Geraldine Fitzgerald.
Welles’s daughter with Rita Hayworth, Rebecca, gave birth to a baby boy out of wedlock whom she gave up for adoption at birth. The baby was named Marc McKerrow by his adoptive parents and learned of his famous grandparents when he was a teenager; he hoped to have a reunion with his biological mother but she died of cancer before they could meet. McKerrow was featured prominently in the documentary Prodigal Sons and, sadly, died at age 32 of complications from a car accident he’d been in many years before.
Three of the four novellas in Stephen King’s Different Seasons have been turned into movies, but only one has the original title: Apt Pupil. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption became The Shawshank Redemption, and The Body became Stand by Me.
The latter two are absolutely excellent movies, with The Shawshank Redemption being nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.