The Slice: Nobody said the name game ends with logical answers

Let’s do one more of these.

You know … what would you have been named if you had been the other gender?

“Harold Young would have been Ethel Eileen,” wrote my friend Florence Young. “His mother Mildred was one of a pair of twin girls born in 1912. Each promised to name their first daughter after the other. Ethel kept her promise and had Mildred Bernice as her oldest.

“However, Mildred produced Keith, Kirk and Harold and ‘Ethel Eileen’ never saw the light of day.”

Localized phonetic alphabets: Here’s one from Sandpoint’s Susan Bates-Harbuck. The parenthetical comments are hers.

“Appleway, Batum, Cusick, Dufort (road in Bonner County; I drive bookmobile on it each week), Ephrata, Fry Creek (also in Bonner County; sounds like fish come out of it ready to eat), Grangeville, Hoodoo (Bonner County), Issaquah (I know it’s on the west side, but the name is just too cool to pass up), Joseph, Kootenai, Laclede, Moyie, Naples, Opportunity, Ponderay (easier for Sandpoint High graduates to spell than Pend Oreille), Quartz Mountain (doesn’t that sound like a lovely place?), Rathdrum, Schrag (to go with Batum), Tekoa (just because it’s hard to pronounce), Usk (just because it’s easy to pronounce), Viola, Whiskey Jack (road in aforementioned Kootenai), Xavier (as in St. and the parish), Yaak, Zortman (in Montana, but I think they’d appreciate being included).”

That would make me Ponderay Appleway Usk Laclede. How about you?

Now here’s one from Georgia Coulston, who focused on places with ZIP codes starting with 99.

“Airway Heights, Benton City, Cheney, Deer Park, Endicott, Fairfield, Garfield, Harrington, Ione, Kettle Falls, Liberty Lake, Medical Lake, Newport, Odessa, Pullman, Quincy, Reardan, Sprague, Tekoa, Usk, Valleyford, Walla Walla, Yakima, Zillah.”

So I would be Pullman Airway Heights Usk Liberty Lake.

Yes, she is aware that she left out J and X.

If Spokane, Washington had a middle name: “I think ‘Valley’ would fit rather nicely,” wrote Ted Redman.

I was thinking more along the lines of Cuthbert, Darcy or Prunella, but OK.

Today’s Slice question: Ever cry at work?