Super Bowl, Y'all!

Without a Soul Named Ilm

Hey hey it's leading-up-to-Super-Bowl week. Back in the 70s and 80s I would be there for that in person, a canny young sportscribe, making sport of the hype. The Super Bowl, you know, has always been heavily promoted.

And now you hear people opining that the Super Bowl is one thing that all Americans share.

            I don't know about the unum. I will say the Super Bowl has pluribus.

            Check the names. American sports names are so much more diverse, now, than in the days of Dizzy Trout and Louise Suggs or even Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown. And the roster of the Chiefs offers prime examples:

            The hyphenates:

                        Felix Anudike-Uzomah

                        Ekow Boye-Doe

                        Clyde Edwards-Hilaire

                        Marquez Valdes-Scantling

            The apostrophised:

                        La'Mical Perine

                        L'Jario Sneed

            The adjectivally surnamed:

                        Drue Tranquil

                        Kadarius Toney

            On the active roster, the Chiefs have just one Biblical name:

                        Isaiah Pacheco

            But on the practice squad:

                        Isaiah Buggs

                        Izaiah Gathings

            Among the injured reserve, two Chiefs incorporate unlikely double letters:

                        Skyy Moore

                        Derrick Nnaki

            And then, too, there are these names among the Chiefs:

                        Chukwuebuka Godrick

                        Keaontay Ingram

            The 49ers, too, got names. They got hyphenates:

            Dimetrius Flannigan-Fowles

            Sebastian Joseph-Day

            Ray-Ray McCloud III

            Tryon Davis-Price (practice squad)

They got one, eye-catching, apostrophe:

            Ji'Ayir Brown

They got Biblical:

            Elijah Mitchell

            Isaiah Olives

            Isaac Alarcon (reserve/future)

They got a wide receiver with a name that cries out for a sobriquet:

          Deebo (Go Deep) Samuel

And their 49ers’ punter's name is . . . Get your mouth set:

Mitch Wishnowsky.

Most of all, the 49ers have an offensive lineman on the practice squad whose name is very unusual:

            Ilm Manning

Oof! I would have bet you any amount of money that nothing rhymes with film. (Elm, yes: helm, realm, overwhelm.) Unless you're rushing through Willem, as in Willm Dafoe, and why would anyone do that? Do I have in my archives a limerick involving the word film? Yes, one:

                        A Japanese-film buff named Dudley

                        Feels sufficiently studly --

                                    Like Toshiro Mifune --

                                    To come on all uni-

                         Laterally cuddly.

            There's a good reason that people want to say "movie" not "film." "Film" not only sounds pretentious, it also leaves your lips unresolved, like a skin on cocoa. It's a great relief when "Ilm" flows into "Manning."

Ilm Manning was born and raised in Arizona. Six feet tall and weighs 294 pounds, and yet can vertical-leap 30.5 inches.

            Oh, wait. Hold up.

            I have just learned, from Wikipedia, that the 49ers have traded Ilm away. To the Carolina Panthers.

            So he is no part of the pre-Super-Bowl story, this year. But I don't want to waste the searches I did for him. For the name Ilm.

            Where is the name Ilm most widespread? In Sri Lanka.

           And say you were named Ilm, outside of Sri Lanka? And you wondered whether you were by that token a weirdo? You could search and find comfort in  MyFirstName.Rocks, where, under Ilm, we read this:

            Your name (anagram) will give 'Iml'. How do you pronounce that?  The true meaning of 'Ilm' cannot be described with just a few words. Your name is your destiny, heart's desire, and personality. Ilm is a name that evokes logical reasoning. You are possibly intelligent, intuitive, graceful, and even a psychic. . .  You are an enemy to: Garvey . . . Wystan . . . Jenniffer.

            The U.S. Social Security Administration (ssa.gov) public data has no record of the name Ilm. Imagine that, your name is not present in the 6,028,151 public data. One possible reason is that there are fewer than five occurrences of your name. Ssshhh, the SSA is trying to protect your privacy. You might want to use a short version of your first name or perhaps your nickname.  On the other hand, you merely have a name that no one else in America is using. Your parents have done an impressive research job. For only they have thought of the name 'Ilm.' Brilliant!

Possibly generated by a machine.

Possibly unread, by any human being — even by Ilm, hilmself — until now, by us.

Wonders of hooey are available, online, today, to one and all! But a football game is, still, something… Real? I don’t know that I would go so far as real. Still a visibly physical thing. People, with names, will play it. It's going to happen. No one would let the Super Bowl be rigged.   

Lifelike

                                          

(A Conversation Between People --

Neighbors, Let's Say --

in the Not-Too-Distant Future)

"I've got to go reboot the robot.

He's old, but he's better than no bot.

         Has four wings and legs,     

         Lays aluminum eggs,

And clicks when you tell him, 'You go, Bot.'"     

"Anthropomorphic then, eh?"

"From opposable ears all the way

          To retractable eye."

          "If he's that lifelike, why

Are his pronouns not them, their and they?"