The Schwa

Posted by Paul J. Amore on 06.11.2009

Does President Obama have a bigger distinction than being the first black president? Only in my distorted view. Plus: trivia question!

A schwa is the grunting "uh" sound you make in an unstressed syllable when you run over the vowel sound. It's the sound represented by the upside-down e in pronunciation keys. It can be any of the five main vowels: u as in Arthur, o as in Clinton, i as in Madison, e as in Hoover, and a as in Obama (the second a).

Obama is the first US president whose surname ends in a schwa. He's only the fourth whose surname ends in a vowel sound (Monroe, McKinley, Kennedy) and only the fifth whose surname starts with one (the two Adamses, Arthur, Eisenhower). Barack has to be right up there with Rutherford, Abraham, and Woodrow as the oddest given name.

And of course there's the Hussein. We just fought a war against a country whose leader was named Hussein. I mean, come on. After we won our independence from King George, did we go out and elect. . . well, never mind that.

In some ways, I think it's more significant that we elected a man named Barack Obama than that we elected a black man. (And for the record, the copy of MS Word I'm using highlights both of those names for spell-checking.) The politics of race are something apart. The fact is that nominating a black man is a card that the Democrat Party* had in its pocket since the civil rights movement. It was an inevitability. That black people would vote for a black man is not a remarkable sign of progress.

That thousands of Smiths and Johnsons and Clintons and Bushes voted for an Obama is a sign of progress. It is evidence of anti-prejudice. That name carried with it his Kenyan heritage, his disparate descent, his origin outside of the contiguous 48. Race, birth, and parentage played no part in last year's election, or if they did, only softened the result, not changing it.

There is a beauty in continuity. We still have an unbroken streak of forty-four males in the office, and it's comforting to some to keep that going. And in a lesser country, the beauty and the comfort might be worth something. But in America we have made a choice, and that choice is to keep trivial things trivial and judge politicians on their politics.

Of course, I still don't care for Obama's politics, but that has nothing to do with his name.

Anyway, since I started this post with presidential trivia, we'll end on some also. Of all the US presidents (Constitution-era, none of this Articles of Confederation crap) who did not die in office, nor ascend to the office on the death or resignation of another man, who served the shortest term? A shout out in the next post to whoever comments first with the correct answer.


*I should defend that word choice. One who believes in democracy is a democrat. One who believes in republicanism is a republican. Groups are named after the noun that makes them up, not the adjective form. People work for car companies, not car-ish companies. I belong to the Amore family, not the Amore-esque family. You sit in a movie theater, not a movian theater. If you want me to say "Democratic Party," you should say "Republicanian Party" and "Libertarianic Party."