Monday Trivia #99 [Plinko wins!]

From most to least: Minnesota, New York, Illinois, Georgia, Mississippi, (Indiana, Iowa, Montana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania,) (Nebraska, Washington,) Oklahoma, (Maryland, North Dakota,) South Carolina, New Mexico, (California, Florida, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia,) Louisiana, (Kentucky, Michigan, Rhode Island,) Connecticut, (Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Maine, South Dakota,) (Missouri, West Virginia,) (Ohio, Tennessee, Wisconsin,) Texas, (Arizona, Oregon, Vermont, Wyoming,) Utah, Hawaii, New Hampshire, (Delaware, Nevada,) Alaska.

Will Truman

Will Truman is the Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. He is also on Twitter.

35 Comments

  1. How cone ‘maine’ doesn’t merit a capital? I take umbrage.

    My guess is % of population fron Sweden. But that’s only because Minnesota has the most.

    • neither does the second half of South Dakota – I think Trumwill is signalling something here.

      • demographic-wise, the two places are reputedly similar; or so the folks that know those things around these parts frequently claim. Perhaps a disproportionate number of broken shift keys?

  2. Monday Hint: Okay, I meant to actually put this in the question. But, a number of these are ties, which are listed in alphabetical order when there is a tie.

  3. Tuesday Hint: You’d think that this would be something that would track more with population than it does. It’s a hard number (not per capita, percent, etc.)

    Bonus: States that are tied are wrapped in parenthesis now. Sorry, meant to do that on Sunday.

    • So it’s an objective number of X’s per state? There are 1,500 miles of freeway in California and 8,00 miles of freeway in Arizona, something like that?

  4. Lutheran churches? Not seriously, but one of the things that I remember from my childhood in NW Iowa with frequent trips across the border into Minnesota is that even the small towns had multiple Lutheran churches. Generally speaking, you could tell which northern European country a person’s ancestors came from by which Lutheran church they attended. Also, that misspelling the name Andersen as Anderson — or vice versa — could get you in trouble. I was always the scrawny little dark-haired kid with the funny name in grade school, surrounded by tall blond vikings.

    • For there to be so many ties, it would have to be a relatively small number, right? If we’re talking about thousands of churches in a big state, then you wouldn’t expect to see an exact 3-way tie anywhere.

    • That suggests something like a geographic feature. Minnesota being number 1 would lead one to suspect lakes, but Indiana and Iowa could not top Michigan if that was the case. So what other geographic thingy might fit?

      (Or it could just be some other relatively fixed “thing,” something that’s resistant to change because it’s very capital intensive, or something like that.)

      • The multiple instance of states being tied would seem to indicate that the actual numbers are fairly low.

        • I think I have it. Gonna do a Randy Harris and say only that Ohio and Wisconsin both have the same number at 99. Alaska is at the low with 40.

          • Ah, I see, I’m counting Nebraska wrong. Then it would be WI, OH and TN at 33 and AK at 20.

            Funny, all the ones I checked are the same for either except Nebraska, for obvious reasons, but I did not check them all.

    • Fair enough: Size of the upper and/or only house in the state legislature.

      • Man, the Nebraska reference kind of led me toward that. I was thinking of saying state legislative districts, which would be the same thing. But I didn’t have confidence in it.

        I’m going off to hang my head in shame.

        • Legislative districts wouldn’t have been quite correct. The upper house and lower house would change the order. New Hampshire, for instance, has a huge house but a normal-sized senate. But you would have at least have gotten an assist.

          • I would have shown up on your doorstep to claim my prize…if I could figure out where your doorstep was these days.

            (How goes the packing in 90 minute increments?)

      • The tracking population size convinced me it was a government reference, but it took me a while to think of state legislatures.

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