A shocking realization came to me today: I am much purer of heart, much more guileless, than I gave myself credit for. Here's how I discovered this strange and happy fact.
Last month, professor Leigh Clemons of Louisiana State University tried to order a custom New England Patriots jersey from the NFL website. She wanted the name "Gay" on the back of the shirt because her former student, Randall Gay, had just finished his rookie season with the Patriots.
The L.A. Daily News reports that
>> [W]hen she ... typed in the request, it was denied because of a message that read: "This field should not contain naughty words." Randall Gay wasn't the first NFL player with that name, either — there has been a William and a Ben in recent years, too. <<
But the story gets better. The people behind a website called Outsports.com managed to extract the list of words the NFL website deemed verboten — all 1,159 of them. Hobo, tramp, bullcrap, SOB, and Lolita are on the list, as are bisexual, lesbian, Polack, tongue, headlights, creamy, fondle, and, um, Budweiser (Miller Lite, on the other hand, is OK).
I now have a burning but sadly unfulfillable desire: To have been a fly on the wall during the meeting where the NFL staff compiled the list. I'm sure it would beat fondling the creamiest of headlights.
The delight (or horror) of the list is that I learned just how uninformed I am when it comes to dirty language. If I use my imagination, I can understand what 'glazed donut' might refer to (I think), and after some pondering, 'Hershey Highway' also seemed to surrender its initial mystery. But what's juggalo? Lady Boog? Pocket pool? PWT? Yellowman (other than the reggae singer)? Nooner? EVL? G-Unit?
Honest, I never knew I was this innocent. Thanks, NFL. (hat tip: fark.com)
Is it innocence, or just the fact that English is not your native language? My guess is that this (short) list of dirty Dutch words seems way more familiar to you. And I reckon that for a non-native speaker words like 'poes' and 'pot' are very normal words without sexual connotation. After they used them a couple of times in normal sentences and hear the snickering they might get suspicious though.
Posted by: mare | Wednesday, March 09, 2005 at 09:59 AM
At the risk of sounding pedantic, Mare, but I don't think that's it. If my vocabulary -- pop-cultural and otherwise -- were as hobbled as you suggest, I wouldn't be writing for national newspapers and magazines, much less editing them (and improving native speakers'/writers' prose). For now, I'm going with the theory that the NFL simply employs pottier potty-mouths than I am ;-)
Posted by: Rogier | Wednesday, March 09, 2005 at 03:02 PM
FYI Pocket pool refers to hands-in-pockets handling of testicles, auto-erotic in nature. Nooner, like niner, refers to opportunistic and hasty coitus at that time of day.
Posted by: Poustman | Wednesday, March 09, 2005 at 04:41 PM
From www.urbandictionary.com
PWT = "Poor White Trash"
G-unit = Gorilla Unit (a "unit" being a reference to the mail naughty bit)
Juggalo/Juggalette = A person who listens to Insane Clown Posse or any other of the groups under the Psycopathic Records label.
Posted by: Elliott | Thursday, March 10, 2005 at 09:15 AM
Awesome Elliott. Thank you for saving me from thinking that maybe PWT stands for Penis-Whipping Tranny. ;-)
Posted by: Rogier | Thursday, March 10, 2005 at 12:34 PM
Hey..I do what I can. :-)
Posted by: Elliott | Thursday, March 10, 2005 at 01:27 PM
Just a quick note to inform you that http://www.bargoens.com/sexualiteit.htm that mare refers to has moved to http://www.voorbeginners.info/bargoens/seksualiteit.htm
Posted by: Marcel | Wednesday, March 16, 2005 at 10:13 AM