*heh*
Then there's the story of the P number.
In Michigan, every person licensed to practice law has a "P number," an individual identification number which must go on all pleadings below counsel's signature.
No one seemed to know or care why it was a "P" number, although I asked around for years. Finally, while in a meeting about internal Court of Appeals information management, the subject of P numbers came up (I can't remember why), and I reiterated my complaint that I couldn't find out what the "P" was for. To my surprise, Hank, the then-head of the Court's information systems division, said, "I know."
It seems that for years and years, there was no system at the State Bar for uniquely identifying bar members, so that confusion often arose over who was who regarding counsel with duplicate names. Each year, when people paid their bar dues, the bar would number them according to the alphabetical list, but because membership changed each year, the numbers also changed each year. In a word, the numbers were pointless. So Hank, in I forget what capacity, volunteered to set up a system to assign permanent numbers to bar members. During the year that he did so, the old-system bar numbers were also assigned. To distinguish between the two numbers, Hank called his numbers the "permanent" numbers; or, "P numbers" for short. Thirty years later, with no other numbers in existence in the interim, those numbers are still called the "P" numbers. And until now, about the only people on the planet who knew why were Hank and me.
And it's stuff like this which makes etymology so hopeless and so fascinating.
