Where did the name “Dixie” come from? And exactly what states comprise Dixie? –Leigh-Anne Horton, Dallas
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Dixie is usually thought to include the states of the Confederacy, but where the term comes from nobody knows for sure. Here are the three leading theories: (1) Before the Civil War, the Citizens Bank of Louisiana, located in New Orleans, issued ten-dollar notes that bore the Creole/French word dix, ten, on one side. These notes were known as “dixies” and the south came to be known as the “land of dixies.” (2) The term comes from the Dixon in “Mason-Dixon line,” the famous pre-Revolutionary War surveyors’ line that separated Maryland and Pennsylvania. (3) It comes from “Dixy’s land,” Dixy supposedly being a kindly slave owner on Manhattan island, of all places. Dixy’s regime was supposedly so enlightened that for slaves his plantation came to symbolize earthly paradise. Sounds ridiculous, but the story was widely told in the years just after the Civil War.
Ever since I was a young boy I’ve wanted to become an absinthe drinker. Why can’t I find it at my corner liquor store? –A.C. Murphy, Atlanta
I hate senior electrical engineering students. Whatever his other moral and intellectual deficiencies, I think it is reasonably clear from his letter that Josef Prall knows 10(100) minus 10(28) doesn’t equal 10(72). He was using–certainly I was using–the expression “a difference of 10(so-and-so)” as a shorthand way of saying “a difference of so-and-so orders of magnitude.” This may seem a bit careless, but in today’s fast-paced world, every microsecond counts. You’ll understand when you’re older, assuming you can keep from antagonizing your elders long enough to get older.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Slug Signorino.
