He used a winky emoticon. He's out.

When you speak his full name, it forms a sentence! Very cool.

Good luck to Dorsol and his brother Ventral.

His campaign slogan writes itself. "No, There Aren't To Many Immigrates: Vote for Dorsol Plants".

He's got my vote.

@3, and also to their sisters, Distal and Proximal.

Clearly, names matter. Just ask Barack Obama, Saxby Chambliss, Orrin Hatch, and Emanuel Cleaver (say that one slowly).

I'm curious to hear more about the family tradition that "dorsol" is a Gaelic word. It's not listed in any Gaelic dictionary I can find, and googling "+dorsol -plants gaelic" returns no hits except obvious misspellings of "dorsal". Maybe its been corrupted over time, or incorrectly transcribed. What's it understood to mean?

"Plants" is an unusual surname, and an odd choice for an Irishman to receive upon immigration. "Plant" is fairly common (think Robert Plant) and usually comes from the Midlands in England, not Ireland (and from France before that, as "Plante"). "Plants" in the US seems to be mostly of German origin.

I'm asking these questions seriously and respectfully, not taking the piss. The mythological aspects of Irish-American cultural history are easily as interesting, and always more colorful, than the actual Irish realities that may or may not have inspired them. I know my own "Irishness" has been simmered in a stew of frankly mostly bullshit for a couple of hundred years too. My understanding is that leprechauns aren't real as well.

@6, I thought you were going to say Lursa and B'Etor.

Oh, damn. @9 for the House of Duras win!

As Stewart and Colbert made fun of Reince Priebus in the last few days, I started thinking: You know what would never make it these days? A presidential ticket with two long last names, say four syllables or more. "Buenaventura/Frelinghuysen" or something. Ain't no way! Good thing VP choices have all kind of random rationales anyway.

@8 Gaelic exists in either p-Goidelic or q-Goedelic as the major variants. It has never been a written language and the first "dictionaries" were only written a few hundred years ago.

The number of dialects within the two major branches of Gaelic is around 20. Gaelic speakers exist in Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, Germany, France, Belgium, and it is thought their existence in Spain is still semi-controversial.

Of course, maybe teh Googlez doesn't know about that.

My fave Gaelic word, other than my names, is Sgain.

I thought only white supremacists got all caught up telling you about their Irish Gaelic ancestors.

Names do matter, just ask Rep. Jan Angel (who isn't really an "Angel" - that's her ex-husbands name, which she kept even after she re-married, maybe assuming that everyone wants to vote for an Angel).

Fnarf, as a fellow-mixed-Irisher, here's what I've got: What if that name is an Anglicized version of a Gaelic name (my mum's maiden name is Devine, which used to be Daimhin, pronounced the same way), so here's a possibility:
Dearbhail (f) pronounced DJAR val, Derval (Dorsol?)
Only problem is that it's a girl's name. And why Plants? If there were too many Floyds, where do they get Plant? It's a mystery...an IRISH mystery.

@12, I should have known you'd pipe up with your customary load of irrelevant bollocks. Apparently your information came from a textbook that's more than a century old, which you're recalling incorrectly to boot. The terms you're grasping for are "Q-Celtic" and "P-Celtic", not "Q-Goidelic" and "P-Goidelic"; Goidelic IS Q-Celtic. P-Celtic refers to some of the variations on Great Britain (Pictish, Welsh, Cornish, etc.), as well as Gaulish and so on on the European Continent.

And regardless of whatever dim misunderstandings you have, the difference between P and Q has fuck-all to do with Irish Gaelic, which is and always has been solidly Q-Celtic (as has Scottish Gaelic, Manx, and the absolutely NON-controversial Celtiberian language(s). Ps and Qs don't enter into it.

So: once again we see Will, in his attempt to fill his hollow reputation with technical-sounding facty stuff, getting EVERY SINGLE THING HE WROTE WRONG.

Which is especially sad for him because he doesn't have anything to add to the discussion itself, only these flatulent asides designed not to contribute but to make himself look smart. At which he has once again failed.

On the question of sources, Will calls mine into question with the snide reference to "teh Googlez". But if his sources are so much better than those available online, then WHY ARE ALL OF HIS FACTS WRONG?

For the record, I think it's safe to say that MacBain's Etymological Dictionary and the Foclóir Póca could be considered authoritative.

FNARF is a fucking BiTCH.

Will also says

It has never been a written language

FALSE.

All we know of ancient Primitive Irish is written (obviously), using the Ogham script, which dates from the 4th century AD. The Irish literary tradition began in earnest in the 8th century with the adoption of the Latin alphabet, and much of it survives today. Book of Armagh. Book of Leinster. The Ulster Cycle. You couldn't be more wrong about this if you tried; it's like saying "Latin was never a written language".

and the first "dictionaries" were only written a few hundred years ago.

The first dictionaries in ANY language were only written a few hundred years ago.

@17, go Huskies!

Fnarf, you beat me to the punch on every one of Will's points. Thank you! I was guessing that -- like Canuck -- it was an Anglicized version of an Irish name, so I tried out a number of possibilities. No luck. I'll ask a native Irish speaker and get back to y'all.

Uh...correction: I didn't mean to imply that Canuck's name is an Anglicization! Sorry. "...like Canuck suggested..."

What about Dick Swett? He got elected to the House of Reps without changing his name. The mayor of the town next to mine was Dick Schooler back in the 90's. I'm sure those weren't the only Dicks elected.
Dig up the Wait Wait Don't Tell Me episode from when Barack Hussein Obama was running for Senate and they all had a good chuckle about his name and long shot odds.

@21 That's okay...actually, it used to be O'Canuck, but I simplified when I joined Slog.

@23, are your O'Canucks by any chance related to the MacCanuckanucks of Scotland, Ontario?

This is why I still think Prophet Atlantis has a shot.

@24 Och, laddie! I dinna ken fer sure ifen they are or not, but I wear me kilt wit no knickers jest in case.

Upon his successful election, I will propose that Dorsol join me in creating a crazy names caucus of elected officials!

Voters have graciously elected me three times, so I say, good luck Dorsol...

@26, if we ever meet I'll wear my mirror-toed shoes.

@28 Mr. Canuck did that when we first met...I'm sure he'd be happy to lend you his seeing-eye dog and cane to use afterwards...

@28 don't those hurt?

I'm not talking about modern Gaelic, as practiced in Wales, Scotland or Ireland. Feel free to comment on that, it's as relevant as Klingon.

Okay, so Dorsal isn't a name any of my native-Irish-speaking friends have ever heard. Also Will, they don't speak Gaelic in Wales. They speak Welsh in Wales.

Dorsol doesn't need a name change. He just needs to cultivate a more familiar nickname.

"Bud", fr'instance. Or maybe "Herb".

@31, are you under the impression that Ogham script is "modern Gaelic"? Your assertions are still -- all of them -- utterly erroneous. "Not a written language" is not true today and was not true in the 4th century, the 12th, or the 18th.

And "P-Goidelic" is an oxymoron; Goidelic MEANS Q. Not P. There's no such thing as "P-Goidelic" or "Q-Goidelic". You have your terms hopelessly mangled.

You're an idiot, and every word you type digs your hole deeper. Bizarrely, you know EVEN LESS about Gaelic than a person who knows nothing about Gaelic. This is true of every subject, in fact. How do you do it?