My (Admittedly Silly) Stake in Scotland's Independence Referendum

When I was younger--maybe 15 years or so ago--my brother dared me to memorize all the countries in the world in alphabetical order, probably because I was bothering him and there's no better way to get rid of someone then by sending them off to a ridiculous task that seems most impossible. After all, around the year 2000, there were approximately 190 countries in the world, so a pretty hefty list. I didn't see it as a useless task; rather, I found a fun challenge, and thus began my excessive organizing skills.

When I travel to every country starting with a letter of the
alphabet, I am crossing it off this list. There are no W or X
countries, so those were gone first. I traveled to Qatar--the
only Q--in 2010. And I hit up both Zs--Zambia and Zimbabwe
earlier this year. I'm a few countries away from any other
letter except the ones that only have 1 or 2 total, so it might be
awhile until another country gets crossed off.

It's amazing how you can find patterns in things when you need to in order to make life easier. Maybe that sounds obvious, but memorizing 190+ countries really put that into perspective for me. For instance, I could always tell if I missed an early-alphabetical country because I knew Dominican Republic, the last of the 4 Ds, was #50, and 50 is an easy number to which to count. The end of the Es is Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia...or "Er", "Es", "Et". Peru follows Paraguay, two South American countries.

Problems soon arose, however, because the world is not a static place. Since originally learning the list, I've had to add in East Timor (Dominican Republic, East Timor, Ecuador)...which then changed its name to Timor-Leste (Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo); Montenegro (Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco); Kosovo (Kiribati, Kosovo, Kuwait); Serbia (Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles); and South Sudan (South Korea, South Sudan, Spain). Kosovo was a great addition...it now means that the Ks are now "Ka" (Kazakhstan), "Ke" (Kenya), "Ki" (Kiribati), "Ko" (Kosovo), "Ku" (Kuwait), and "Ky" (Kyrgyzstan). Yeah, that got me excited! :)

I'm conflicted about whether to add Palestine, and I don't do changes well. When Cape Verde became Cabo Verde, it moved it up a couple of spots, just far enough to mess with my patterns. Stupid Cabo Verde. So here's my stake in the Scottish independence referendum: if it passes, I'm going to have to figure out where Scotland fits in the list. I know, I know, this is a silly, ridiculous thing to be upset about. Scottish people are deciding their future, and I'm worried about having to re-alphabetize the countries of the world. I guess we all have our priorities???

So how many countries are there in the world? CGP Grey does a good job of explaining...or not explaining.