saying there have been 44 presidents

You’ve probably heard that Barack Obama is our 44th president, or heard people in the media refer to the George Bushes as “Bush 41” and “Bush 43” to tell them apart. This is silly, because 43 different men have been President of the United States. The confusion arises from Grover Cleveland, who was president for two non-consecutive terms, from 1885-1889 and 1893-1897, so he is usually counted as both the 22nd and 24th president. Our system of presidential elections makes it unusual for someone to be elected to non-consecutive terms, but in countries with a prime minister or premier, offices which are typically controlled by the party leader of whichever party holds the legislature, this happens frequently. Consider Wikipedia’s list of Canada’s prime ministers. In eminently sensible fashion, those who served at separate times are simply numbered in accordance with when they first served, regardless of however many separate terms they had. So Stephen Harper actually is the 22nd Prime Minister of Canada. If the Candians followed our approach, they’d call him the 27th prime minister.