Andy Borowitz and Ms. Tracy Klugian

Back in 2011, I wrote about satirist Andy Borowitz and his habit of recycling the names of the imaginary people he quotes. The names that had caught my eye were Tracy Klugian, Harland Dorrinson (or Harlan Dorinson) and Davis Logsdon. I also observed that the pronoun "she" was a rarity among Borowitz' fictional characters. He had no choice but to use "she" when he wrote about an actual female, but even his oft-quoted Tracy Klugian, despite having a first name that is common for girls as well as boys, was always "he."

Today I noticed that Borowitz used "she" for Tracy Klugian. How refreshing! I then did a quick search on The New Yorker's website and found that so far in 2017 Tracy was "she" once - on July 31, 2017, "he" once - on Sept. 21, 2017, and without pronoun 4 times - on Jan. 22, Apr. 24, May 2 and May 4. By the way, on May 2, Tracy was a schoolkid as was Zach Dorrinson, no doubt the son of the fictional Harland. Zach was also quoted. Wonder why young Dorrinson wasn't Zelda or, to continue with unisex names and gender ambiguity, Pat, Leslie or Kim?

It was time to investigate the M/F data for Tracy. A 2007 yahoo best answer to the question whether Tracy is a boy's name or a girl's identified 7 famous people named Tracy, 4 male and 3 female. The famousbirthdays.com site's list of celebrity and celebrated Tracy Somethings included pictures for at least the first 12. The score there was 4 to 8, men to women.

The US Census publishes good data on names, too. On this page , you can scroll down to 'Popularity by Name' and enter a name, select male or female, and then choose how far back you want to go. The search automatically goes through 2016. I chose to start in the 1900s and got a bar chart showing all the years when the chosen name was among the top 1000. I looked at Tracy, both female and male. For most of the years between 1942 and 2004, Tracy was in the top 1000 names for girls, but it did not make the top 1000 before 1942 nor after 2004 when it was ranked 951 . In 1970, its high point, the rank was 10. Among boys, Tracy had a longer run but was overall much less popular. It was in the top 1000 for many of the years between 1900 and 1999 and in that last year it ranked 808th. Its high point was 1967 with a rank of 98. The question is close but on balance Tracy Klugian's preferred pronoun should really be "she."

In 2014 I added Carol Foyler to my personal list of favorite recycled names. I had discovered Carol when I revisited Borowitz' naming habits in response to a comment posted to my 2011 piece. (That writer had wondered about Borowitz' preference for the University of Minnesota.) Of course, Carol can also be a man's name but I haven't noticed Borowitz ever call Fowler "he." Carol is not in today's piece but was, sans pronoun, there with Tracy (gender M) on Sept. 21. A few days ago on Oct. 28, Carol had a husband but chose to leave him to have surgery alone in order to come to Washington and join the hopeful crowd outside Mueller's office after Friday's news. How big was that crowd? Andy writes that a policeman (a man not an officer whose pronoun was "he") thought it could reach a million, and added "We definitely didn’t see anything like this at the Inauguration.” Borowitz does seem to live in a man's (or mostly men, anyway) world, whether real or imaginary, but he does have a way with words.

If you haven't yet seen today's Borowitz piece, rest assured that it includes your old guy friends Dorrinson and Logsdon, this time a clinical psychologist at, yes, the University of Minnesota.

Andy Borowitz and Minnesota (Borowitz 02, PhD Ideas 04)

Today, two and a half years after I posted Andy Borowitz and his recycled names

[ http://myunpublishedworks2.blogspot.com/2011/09/andy-borowitz-tracy-klugian-and-harland.html ],

I received this comment from Anonymous:

February 6, 2014 at 9:08 AM

Just caught this after think the same thing about Tracy Klugian. One other thing I have noticed is that many of his academic experts are from the University of Minnesota.

That prompted me to search for "Andy Borowitz Minnesota." One of the top hits was about Al Franken becoming Senator.  I wondered whether Al and Andy know each other.  They might.  Both are humorists and Harvard graduates: Al '73 and Andy '80.  Al overlapped with Andy's brother Peter '74, whom I knew when we both worked at the Holyoke Center Ticket Office in Harvard Square.


Andy is originally from Ohio.  Ohio appears often, too, I believe. (My original post mentioned Klugian as a spokeman for Ohio Art).

Perhaps he chooses Minnesota because he is a Vikings fan.  The Vikings may appear more often than other football teams.

PhD Ideas
A student of American Humor, with a special interest in the early 21st century, could write a dissertation about the states where Borowitz's fictitional people live, the sports teams he uses (other than when their own actions are the reason for the story), and so on.  Which states dominate?  Are there trends?  Has Minnesota risen in popularity during the Senator Franken years?  Also, what is the M/F ratio of Borowitz' fictional people, overall and year by year? 

Andy, if you read this, please include more fictional women.  I don't ask for equality -- I understand how time-consuming it would be to overcome knee-jerk gender stereotyping, see tinyurl.com/genkster --  but maybe you could aim for 25%?  You could call your next imagined female "Robertina Morslon" (I checked: there are no Robertina Morslons on the web) and it would be our little secret.  I can say that because nobody reads my blogs.  Except once in a while to read about Tracy Klugian.  That post has brought in more of the kindness of strangers than I would otherwise receive.

Good old Tracy.  There he is, still a HE, in today's Report.  http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/02/sochi-hotel-guests-complain-about-topless-portraits-of-putin-in-rooms.html.  This time Tracy is there with his wife.  How about Tracy and her husband?  Or, given that the piece is about Putin, Tracy and her wife?!

Yesterday's column had one fictional character, a Microsoft spokesMAN.  But hooray, two days ago Borowitz mentioned Carol Foyler, a mother from Akron, Ohio.  Foyler, although not as frequent a character as Tracy Klugian or Harland Dorinson, has appeared since at least 2007.  Even better, she is not always a mother.  She has been a senior this and a senior that, an executive director, a mayor ... and that's only looking at the first few hits. I apologize for not noticing Carol back when I wrote about Tracy, Harland and Davis.  Carol: You go, girl!

Andy Borowitz, Tracy Klugian and Harland Dorinson

For a couple of years now I've subscribed to The Borowitz Report and I am a big fan. I also have a good memory for names, which could be why I noticed that Borowitz recycles them. Very often he attributes quotes from spokesmen, men on the street, or experts to either Harland Dorinson or Tracy Klugian. Also, Davis Logsdon, as I discovered writing this blog. And there may be others. By the way, Tracy is always "he," as far as I can tell, although Tracy can be a woman's name, too. As to the use of "he," Mr. B. should read NE-NER-NIS to learn how easily he could avoid choosing a sex for ambiguously-named persons.
          Nowhere on the web could I find a mention of the ubiquity of Klugian and Dorinson. This leaves me wondering whether they are completely fictitious or just (un)lucky enough to be associated with so many different statements and fields. They also grow old and young and old again at Andy's fancy: he always