Well, I made it to Salt Lake City in one piece. I even got a chance to walk around for a bit, but I kept getting really confused about where I was going. Then I realized that I am actually staying at the intersection of West South Temple and South West Temple. Um, no wonder I kept going in circles.
Anyway, I didn’t have time to find a good number puzzle today, so you’re getting one I saw in the in flight magazine:
Three of these names have something in common: Diana, Mary, Sophia and Carol
Which is the odd one out, and why?
graph paper diaries 
They sound like hurricane names. They used to only use female names for hurricanes. So, my guess is that three of these are “retired” hurricane names and one is not. But I'm not sure which one. That's the best I can do.
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I don't think that any member of the British royal family has ever married a woman named Sophia.
However, there has been at least one Diana and one Mary, and I suspect a Carol, wed to a member of that royal family.
Just a guess, really.
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And I've found another version of this riddle online, which provides a better answer.
I'll wait to give it, though.
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Diana, Mary, and Sophia have always been feminine names. Carol was a masculine name, originally.
Names always flow male to female, BTW, never the other way. Kelly, Tracy, Shirley, Madison, Dana, Leslie, and Terry, for example, plus all the feminizations of masculine names: Patricia, Roberta, Michaela. (The -a ending is feminine in many languages, and is one of the pieces of evidence that all are descended from an original tongue.)
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Whoa, you guys are getting really creative on me. No one's hit on what I was going for yet, I'll give it another day.
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Let's see…
Indiana, Maryland, and Carolina are States.
Sophia cannot be found as part of a State name.
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Exactly. Some versions include Lin, but that seemed a bit obscure to me.
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I decided to look it up and I was 2/3 right. Diana and Carol were both retired hurricane names (Carol being the first ever after they started the naming system!) I was wrong about Mary. It is a longshot that Sophia will ever be included because it takes a lot to get that far into the alphabet. The most unusual retired names, IMO, are Hortense and Beulah. And, personally, I think naming blizzards is just silly!
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