title: Sorting html ul/li list in alphabetical vertical blocks
body: <p>Here's a problem I run into every now and then, that I usually try and solve from a back end perspective, but would like to know if there's a magic solution others have found to solve this on the front end.</p>
  
  <p>Given a ul/li list, provided in the markup alphabetically, from a-z:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;ul&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Alpha&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Bravo&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Charlie&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Delta&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Echo&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Foxtrot&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Golf&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Hotel&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;India&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Juliet&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Kilo&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Lima&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Mike&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;November&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Oscar&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Papa&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Quebec&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Romeo&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Sierra&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Tango&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Uniform&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Victor&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Whiskey&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;X-ray&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Yankee&lt;/li&gt;
      &lt;li&gt;Zulu&lt;/li&gt;
  &lt;/ul&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Typically, it's very easy to float the items left and sort them visually horizontal in blocks, like such:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/qPX1M.png" alt="One UL/LI list with the li elements floated left"></p>
  
  <p>However, to get columns, like this:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/0CtUW.png" alt="Four UL/LI lists with the ul elements floated left"></p>
  
  <p>I've always had to break the HTML up into separate entities, such as four separate <code>&lt;ul&gt;</code> elements in the above example.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a way to keep it all in one ul list without any additional markup, using just CSS (no JavaScript) to get a columnar look like the second image above?  My guess is "no," but I've seen some magic before, and I'd like to answer this more definitively.</p>