Gary seems to have layed out the logic very simply and clearly. It even makes sense from a grammatical standpoint. "Northern" is an attributive adjective, while "north", used as an adjective, is a noun modifier. Noun modifiers identify a particular type of thing but don't necessarily describe the thing's atrributes (tasty food is food that is tasty, but cat food isn't food that's cat-like).

Words like "northern" can be used both non-restrictively and restrictively. I could say that "North Dakota is the northern Dakota of the two Dakotas", but northern New York is clearly the northern part of a single New York. The northern hemisphere is the northernmost of the two hemispheres. However, "northern" is still being used as an attributive adjective in all these cases. The northern hemisphere is a type of hemisphere, but is it really the name of a place?

Whether a particular country or place follows this logic is beside the point. Names of places are proper nouns. As such, they don't necessarily follow grammatical rules. If the citizens of a country decide to name it a particular name, then that's what the name is regardless of any rule of thumb.

Yes, RIch. It's amazing just how many seeming profundities are really just disguised tautologies. Politicians are particularly adept at spouting long and meaninless tautological diatribes creating the illusion of brilliance.

We could have some fun with this.
“One adam-twelve, be advised, the suspect has turned left and is traveling at a high rate of speed.”
"Ten-four, HQ. One adam-twelve is now advised."
“One adam-twelve, see the man on 14th st, possible mugging victim."
"Ten-four, HQ. We see him. Please advise."

I'll venture a guess that perhaps and maybe aren't often used as part of a properly formed question:

yes: "perhaps you'd like another."
yes: "perhaps you'd like another?" ("?" informally, to indicate inflection)
yes: "would you like another?"
no: "perhaps, would you like another?"

In the first and second examples (declarations), "perhaps" serves to make it clear that the speaker doesn't know the desire of the listener. Without it,the speaker is making an assumption that the listener definitely wants another. In the third and fourth examples, true questions, the speaker clearly expresses that he or she doesn't know the desire of the listener. But this is obvious, just because it's a question, so there's no need to add "perhaps". Just plain old "would you like another?" is clear and complete.

I agree, Giselle, especially in an absurd or even unexpected manner. As to the origin, I don't know if we'll ever answer that, but that type of clever redirection might be attributable to some old comedian, or simply a common device used by all, and often taken advantage of by many comedians. Something like: "After stepping down from office, George Bush commented that the US lacked strong Republican leadership...Oh wait, he was describing the last eight years he was in office."

And, of course, the words, anything and everything, themselves, are singular.

Well, if I understand your last request, others have already posted a number of ways of generating accents, above. I will suggest another that would certainly work when posting here. Simply scroll up, find someone else's post, then copy and paste. Regardless of your local font, it should preserve the intended accent correctly. You also don't have to remember any arcane codes or key sequences.

Maestro, I find it interesting that for someone with such a strong opinion about what is correct, you've used the wrong accent in every case. It's the acute accent, not the grave accent that's used in resume.

The word "some" is even more tricky. Depending on context, it could mean more than one, but less than all, or it could mean more than one, including all, or it could even mean an unspecified individual.

"Does anyone have any marbles?"
"Sure, I have some." (The speaker has more than one, and may even have all of them)

"Do you have all of the marbles?"
"I have some." (The speaker has more than one, but not all of them)

"Is there some person who hasn't lost his/her marbles?" Here, "some" is an unspecified individual (but there could be more than one such person).

Douglas, I would agree with most of what you said with a minor exception. I would suggest that anything could imply either a singularity or a plurality. I would even suggest that if you have everything, then you also have anything. Anything is the opossite of nothing. If you have one, two, or all ten out of a possible ten things, then you have anything. The only way you can't have anything is if you have nothing. On the other hand, if you have everything, then you can only have all ten things. Perhaps I'm beating a dead horse here, but imagine we were discussing ten marbles. I asked you if you had anything in your hand. If you had any marbles at all you'd have to answer yes, even if you had all ten. If I asked if you had everything in your hand, referring to the marbles, of course, you could only answer yes if you had all ten.

was just about to say that anything does not include totality, but everything does. Instead, I would suggest that the totality of everything is actually included in the word anythi