Improbable research  What's in a name  Early demise of the
theory of deadly initials  The great initial discovery of 1999 -
that a man's monogram could cause his early death was dismaying.
But maybe it was all a mistake. A second, very careful look,
carried out by two sceptical economists, says it just ain't so.
In 1999, a blockbuster report called What's in a Name: Mortality
and the Power of Symbols gave people the willies. It said:
"Individuals with 'positive' initials (for example, ACE, VIP)
might live longer than those with "negative" initials (eg PIG,
DIE)." Three psychologists at the University of California, San
Diego, discovered this by poring through death records, and
gathering and crunching numbers. They then published a warning
in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research.  Nicholas
Christenfeld, David Phillips and Laura Glynn were deadly serious
about it. "Males with positive initials live 4.48 years longer"
than most people, they explained, "whereas males with negative
initials die 2.80 years young