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WTF? NC Offers to Replace 10,000 License Plates
beadfulthings writes "In light of recent discussions about the Internet habits of the older generation, it's comforting to know that in North Carolina, up to 10,000 license plates containing the potentially offensive 3-letter WTF combination will be replaced by the Motor Vehicles division at no cost — if the owner of the vehicle finds the plates offensive. As reported on Winston-Salem's television station WXII, the MVD was alerted to the problem by an irate 60-year-old technology teacher who'd been clued in by her grandchildren. The article includes a helpful slide show of twenty Internet acronyms every parent should know. The article doesn't include any information on how you could actually apply for a WTF license plate."
They are going to use taxpayer dollars for this? If I lived in NC *I* would be the one shouting 'WTF?' for real!
WTF? Still can't turn off this section in preferences. (And the greasemonkey scripts I was recommended don't work so well...)
I'd like to buy one. Will they ship out of state?
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
...will say LOL, and I'll be following right behind WTF.
Living in North Carolina, I can only hope only a handful of people will turn in their plates. But the real story should be the clueless educator. Hell, I'm not to far off from 60 and knew about WTF. Here is the funny/sad part--part of the North Carolina curriculum from the NC Dept of Public Instruction is to teach emoticons and abreviations in computer class. I was floored when I saw it being taught in the classroom. The LOL part came when I saw the test the kids are given on the subject matter...
In my homosexual opinion, stupid stuff like this makes me LMAO.
LOL! WTF? ROFLMAO>!
KTHXBYE
*********
filter beater text. blah blah blah.
Here are a lot of non-offensive explanations:
1. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
2. Wednesday Thursday Friday
3. Wow Text File
4. Write To File
5. Welcome To France (lolcats)
6. We The French
7. Work Time Fun
More unique stuff here
and anyone that has "BFF" on their plates should STFU.
88HH420!
That's fucking bullshit, cocksuckers.
Heh, the first acronym in the list of 20 is POS. Supposedly meaning "Parents over shoulder."
Don't tell anyone it actually means "Piece of Shit." NC is running out of possible 3 letter combinations!
I just want this one: WTF-101
Anonymous Coward
on a trip to CA many years ago: 1SUL369 (One sultry....)
I just read through the list of "20 Internet Acronyms All Parents Should Know".....only two I've actually seen in actual use.
They should really l2internetslang because they got wtfpwnt like a bunch of n00bs :)
All the retards of Alabama and none of the charm.
Those 20 acronyms are a total joke. It looks like the only ones in common use are ASL and IRL, which appears as part of "let's meet in real life." Spreading this kind of misinformation won't help anyone.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." - Bob Dylan
A certain ISP owner has TCP-IP as the license number for their glider :o
No, but I did throw granola at a deaf person once
They had to recall millions of "We heart goat sex" plates.
Parents overtake santa
Parents originally scandinavian
Parents open sewers
Parents ovaries smell
Parents operate smallbusiness
sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
He's a technology teacher and he doesn't know what "WTF" stands for. Just what technology is he actually teaching about?
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
The state is issuing your choice among these substitutes: TIT TNA SOB POS FAG FUK SUK PEE ASS POO DIE
Don't anybody tell the guy what "420" means or there'll be even *more* (26^3) replacements.
.....than being afraid of words is being afraid of acronyms that might stand for those words.
Really, someone needs to.....
(1).....take every possible three-letter combination
(2) Come up with a suggested offensive, blasphemous, or obscene connotation for each one.
(3) Circulate said list widely, especially on North Carolina related sites and boards (maybe e-mail to everyone in the N.C. DMV).
(4) Stand back and watch the fun as they are forced to recall every last fuckin' license plate and replace it with numbers-only plates.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
@7 l335t th3 p@r3|\|tz d0|\|7 k|\|0w l337 5p33k y37
Sheep... well a man can't help himself there!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I used to have WTFLOL in NY... but apparently someone took the time to actually complain to the DMV about it so the NY DMV sent me a new set of plates with a letter explaining the situation.
It was a sad day. Sad that someone would actually take that kind of time to complain about a license plate.
So now I have SRSLY b/c it is srsly retarded that I had to turn in the old plates.
George Carlin would have been proud!
How does a "Technology teacher" not know what WTF means in this day and age?
What technology does she teach? How to make a buggy?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tbblake/2574364342/
The article includes a helpful slide show of twenty Internet acronyms every parent should know.
This is the funniest list since Microsoft did one a few years back (I can't' find the link any more)
From this helpful list...
POS-- Parents over shoulder? Not piece of shit or point of sale- and not to be confused with the other MENACING parents-are-here including Parents-in-room (PIR), Parent alert (p911), Parents-are-watching (PAW), Parents-are-listening (PAL), "keeping-parents-clueless" (KPC), and my favorite NIFOC (nude in front of computer), which of course you'd want to keep abbreviated when other people are in the room so they won''t find out (?HUH?) Then there's the ultimately chilling NALOP (Not a lot of people know this)...
WTF? After what I'm guessing is probably an equal amount of research, I've discovered up some for their next edition of the list. Frightening to think our children use these.
ISDOOMPH (I'm Selling Drugs Out Of My Parents House), IWKMYITST (I Will Kill My Parents In Their Sleep Tonight), UHWMD? (Do You Have Weapons of Mass Destruction?), ITGPAHAAWBC (I Think Getting Pregnant And Having An Abortion Would Be Cool), IHGDY? (I Hate God Do You?), LPG (Lets Poison Grandma), ROFML (Rolling On Floor Mainlining), RBIF (Robbing Banks is Fun), LSGTAWS (Lets Sniff Glue Tonight And Worship Satan), MPWNFTAO (My Parents Will NEVER Figure This Acronym Out), and GG (Golly Gee).
No way are they getting my WTFBUSH plate back.
My neighbor has the vanity plate UH WTF. How he got that one by the morons at the DMV.... Oh, wait, morons.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
TC-PIP would only be a permitted assignment for a civil aircraft registered in Turkey.
...if two people complain about your custom plate, it will be taken away from you. In the pre-Internet days, it happened to a driver who had OUI-OUI.
There are some folks here with much too little to do.
rj
... when they suck it out of my cold dead ass.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
What a wonderful way to spend our tax dollars.
Over-reacting granny would never survive reading Slashdot.
Need an automatic screenshot taker? Try here.
Along the same lines... I was raised in Ohio and lived on State Route 69.
When i got home from the military in the 60's the route had been changed to State Route 235.
Mom said it was changed because the college students were stealing all of the road signs along the highway but she did not know why they would be doing that.
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
Well then they could give the "WTF","FCK"
etc.. away with a discount.
Well people are nuts.
Those administration too, what should people do when being named "Dick" ?
sue their parents ?
or can such names be banned to get registered for birth certificate ?
I cant get it anymore those people dont have a life, they should get one.
Making It Up As I Go Along
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
All license plates should be easy to remember. WTF is a good choice. I would retain it if my car got one with that prefix. I see no reason to use all possible combinations just because they are available. I wonder if "ISO SWF" is still available. Finding both the license plate and SWF will be cool, but I will settle for SWF.
I am guessing it has something to do with steam engines.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
WTF?
It starts with the letters 6AM. The last thing I wanted was to be reminded that there is such a thing as "six AM". I think I should be allowed to have mine replaced free of charge also.
With a right dictionary, a rather simple piece of code could do that...
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Will they issue a similar recall for anyone with a "666" licence plate?
And if you are Asian and you don't like the number 250, or numbers containing the digits 4, 5, 6, or 7, how about a recall then?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_in_Chinese_culture#Unlucky_numbers
....decided to buy a personalised number-plate for his daughter Louise-Anne while he was in prison. She got the numberplate LAG-1, which didn't quite make him the brightest light-bulb in the building.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Man, you kids think you are hot stuff for all this texting mumbo-jumbo. Hell, back in the mid 70's, a buddy of mine and myself came up with one. PTSBWWASLA. See if you can figure that one out. > > > > > > > > > > > > > Give up? Pretty Tough Sh*t But Who Wants A Sh*t Laying Around We came up with a few more, but those we take to our grave. (Yes, I know I need to lay off the Mt. Dew
My friend used to have the license plate "UHC 666." It was a completely legitimate plate, not a novelty one. Being the heathenous scoundrels we are, we liked to believe it stood for "You hate Christ, 666." Unfortunately, since it was his Michigan grandparents' car, he had to get a new license plate =/
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
I must be hanging out in the wrong pedo chat rooms; I hardly know any of those "20 Internet acronyms a parent should know."
Heh, I see a lot of NC plates on E-Bay soon. If I had one of those, I'd be hawking it...
I remember seeing a german plate one time that had 'FUCK-nnn' or something. Turned out that FUCK was the designation of some town or other.
Didn't Exxon pick that name because it was meaningless in every language?
Somehow I doubt the NC driver that I saw really wants to give up his WTFCAR!!1 plate...
Hey, here in Virginia the state charges for a "WTF" license plate. Now that's good governance.
I feel like we could come up with inappropriate acronyms for most 3-letter combinations. Then we go back to numbers-only?
Here is a list of the "parents must know" acronyms (most of these are truly terrible and read at your own risk):
POS Parents Over Shoulder
PIR Parents In Room
P911 Parent Alert
PAW Parents are Watching
PAL Parents are Listening (important for children of blind parents)
ASL
MorF Male or Female
SorG Straight or Gay
LMIRL Lets Meet IRL
TD2M Talk Dirty to Me
IWSN I Want Sex Now (isn't this redundant for teenagers?)
NIFOC Nude in front of Computer (also redundant, but maybe just for me)
GYPO Get your pants off
ADR Address
WYCM Will you call me
KFU Kisses For you (sadly not Kentucy Fried Underpants as I expected)
MOOS Member of Opposite Sex
MOSS Member of Same Sex (Or potentially a nasty typo)
NALOPKT Not a lot of people know this (Glad to see the younger generation notices a lot is two words)
As an upstanding member of the internet I am offended that this list leaves off many, many important internet terms. I leave it to the posters after me to create a more comprehensive list for parents.
Roughly half my comments are never submitted. You may be reading the better half...
That's at least as offensive.
Did anyone else notice that the slide show only showed women? WTF kind of sexism is that? Is that the new things these kids do, only girls hide stuff from their parents?
Interesting......
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Turn all possible 3-6 character alpha-numeric combinations into popular, obscene IM shorthand. Before long, we'll need to abandon the roman character system for something a bit less obvious... like one of the alien languages from Futurama.
Just imagine the fun of trying to describe a license plate number as cryptic as the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince's symbol.
8==8 Bones 8==8
For displaying objectionable material.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I heard they were going to have an outdoor celebration of the success of their Last Minute Action Objective meeting regarding the license plate fiasco by burning all the license plates. I think they were calling it the LMAOWTFBBQ.
I thought WTF was pretty much every state's motto
Waste Taxpayers Funds
And if you want a WTF plate, can you get your non-WTF plate replaced by one of the removed ones at no charge, as well?
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
When I bought my new car last year I got one and was quite pleased. I was planning on getting a vanity plate but when I got the plate in the mail I was like, WTF who needs one now? :)
Cosmo Kramer. You *are* the Assman.
Wireless Transmission Forbidden
Web Transactions Fault
Work That Format
My favorite is still the guy that managed to get "GOT MILF" on his license plate. Even better is the picture of the florida plate "A55 RGY", which doesn't seem bad until you see it - the florida orange in the middle of the plate looks like a big O.
Actually I want two one for me one for the wife. Time to get on the phone to DMV. I live in NC and have not seen one yet.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Many of the plates belong to proud members of the National Wild Turkey Federation. These plates are offered by several states, including North Carolina where they are perfectly legal.
I'm pretty sure someone just made up most of those for the article. Someone who doesn't actually chat online. I'm pretty sure only predators who read the article would use those acronyms, to get a reply back from the target - "WTF ur pwn3d".
And your average geek would love to have a WTF plate. If you're offended, unplug your dialup modem and stick to F2F IRL chatting at the senior center, lulz.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
WTF?
This is yet another example of political correctness gone out of hand.
I personally find political correctness offensive. Now I insist on my right to not be offended and demand an instant end of this insanity.
Without this ridiculous pc-crap, the world would be a much better place and if we were to put just as much effort in making this world better as we put in finding things that could be deemed offensive by somebody, this world would so cool, it would make Paradise look like a slum.
I for my part am not, never was and never will be pc. I call a shovel a shovel and not "a device designed to dig holes into a surface by utilising the upper extremities".
WTF-O
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
What about the time I went with my gay friend to the gay bar to show I was cool and not prejudiced against homos and made the mistake of wearing my AC/DC t-shirt. Acronym malfunction doesn't even begin to describe it.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
WTF has been around long before the internet usage of it. I was using it in the coast guard sending Morse code, probably been in use with military communications since there were radios.
If you must keep groaning, please try to do it in a rhythm I can dance to
W-T-F? I used to dream of having W-T-F! When I got a car they gave me S-P-F-C-C-M-T, and I was grateful!
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
I'm sure you could find something offensive in many vanity plates, imagine the DMV trying to sort through all the complaints?
Can you email them in? I wonder how many complaints it takes to get a tag pulled.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
'ffs'. people would go to NC to get one of those plates for their cars !
Read radical news here
And my car's plate ends in 666. I personally don't mind it though
When I was in the Navy we were using this term well before the Internet. Over bad communication lines, it was used as Whiskey, Tango Foxtrot, over.
BOHICA and FUBAR has been around forever to.
Here's some more good military acronyms:
http://timesonline.typepad.com/inside_iraq_weblog/2008/06/whiskey-tango-f.html
I like POO from that list...well not literally. Point Of Origin.
I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people. - Jack Handey
In 1995 I was teaching a class about technology and part of the class involved learning the internet skills that are pretty much taken for granted (or forgotten) these days -- the web, email, irc, usenet, etc. I had a page on the class website that explained the concept of RTFM not just as an annoyed outburst from tech gurus but also as an approach to new technologies you didn't understand. Anyway, the page explained what "RTFM" meant and included links to all kinds of howtos and such.
:)
Things went well until my Department Chair got a call from someone who claimed to be a professor at a naval academy or some military school. He was demanding that the Chair order me to take down the page because "RTFM" was offensive. I said I found it hard to believe that this guy was scouring the internet for offensive things to get irate about and the best he could come up with was my web page. I said that's hardly the most offensive thing on the internet!
My Department Chair's response was, "forget the rest of the internet; he could have found a lot more offensive things just on your website!" I'm glad he had good humor about the whole thing
So, any license plate that has one or more of these letters is suspect; S, P, F, C, M, or T. (C appears twice in the list, so any license plate that has two Cs in it is especially bad.)
Bureaucrats who worry about this kind of shit are as worthless as tits on a boar. Those cocksucking motherfuckers really piss me off. What a bunch of cunts. Fuck them.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
To be honest, I have always laughed whenever I saw a WTF license plate. In fact, I was just driving through the aforementioned Winston-Salem tonight, and I happened to see a WTF license plate. I laughed, as usual.
I suppose I knew this was coming eventually, even if I never really saw any harm in it. North Carolina is boring enough as it is... they could at least afford to give us something like this for amusement. Apparently, though, finding amusement in something moderately offensive is frowned upon, even here.
Alas, has the day finally come when even the South is trying to be politically correct?
This reminds me of a case we had here in California a few years ago.
An older couple had their initials, RAP JAP, on their plate, and were cited by a Japanese police officer who felt that it was racist because it really meant "RAP(e) JAP", in reference to rapes
of Chinese women by Japanese soldiers, and claimed that it meant that the Japanese should be raped back in retaliation.
This is just another byproduct of the "Group Hug" mentality espoused by "feel-good" hippies and daydreaming liberal nutjobs. These clowns feel that everything that is offensive, harmful, "racist" ("racist" in quotes due to the fact that everything that negatively impacts or affects someone who isn't white is automatically branded as "racist", even though there are technically only three races), dangerous, insulting, mean, or in any way negative.
They claim to be more "open-minded", accepting, intelligent, and benevolent than people they brand as "racist, close-minded conservatives", yet they don't realize that by removing any of the negative aspects mentioned above, they are in fact practicing the very things they claim to be working against.
Free speech is a double-edged sword. If you don't want to risk getting cut, go buy a spoon instead.
Tolerance tolerates intolerance.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
You Yanks are such prudes. FFS! GOI!
And how much money is the NC DMV going to waste on this silliness? This has to be one of the most ludicrous things I've ever heard of. Look, if the three letter sequence "WTF" offends you, you really need to grow a thicker skin and/or get over yourself.
Of course, the bigger issue here is this: there's no good reason for having a DMV and license plates and all this nonsense in the first place. Get rid of DMV, save the citizens of taxpayer a bundle of money and gosh only knows how many hours lost standing in line. Everybody wins.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Read that as "60 yr old tech instructor without a sense of humor." Seriously, these "offensive" folks really step out too far.
I knew a quad who tried to apply for a license plate "CRIPPLE". They refused saying someone might be offended. Seriously, HE wasn't offended!
None the less, if we keep eliminating useful combinations of letter because it is an offensive acronym, we might just take down the whole damn system by assigning some offensive verbage to everything we see.
Seriously, people rarely use most of these.
KFU supposedly means "kisses for you". I always thought it meant "K, F*** You".
A number of years ago, Georgia had to replace a number of license plates which began with FAT.
OMFG - "Tits" is on the list. How quaint. LMFAO.
WTF? The Multiple Venereal Disease is going to be replacing license plates? What's up with THAT?
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I prefer FTW!!!!!!!11!!1!!!!!!!11111111
Does the World Trade Federation really irk people that much...?
Notice how many of the complaints are filed by pigs (most of them).
The fucking cops really have nothing to do in their pathetic empty, prison-guard mentality low scumbag lives.
Noone has a right not to be offended.
There is no such thing as a right not to be offended, however I believe this motherfucking 50 or pig-sluts are abusing their job position to persecute people by taking away their license plates.
Die, pigs, die.
You can't handle the truth.
Sincerely,
Winnefred Thurston Fairweather, III.
I live in Winston-Salem and saw the story on WXII's page earlier this week. My wife told me last year that she had seen some WTF tags and I didn't think it was true.
.gov!
Then I saw one picking the kids up at school one day and I told my co-workers about it. They didn't believe me either until I took a picture of one.
They should replace them with LOL plates. My favorite parts of TFA are that the DMV were alerted by a 60-year old "technology teacher" who had to be informed by her granddaughter what WTF meant and that the DMV realized they had a WTF tag on their webpage, but couldn't figure out how to remove the image. Classic
I ask you...
such as WMD or FBUSH but I am assuming these WTF plates were part of the random plate numbers provided by the DMV? So I guess it is only courtesy if you buy a new car and end up with a number containing WTF that the DMV would replace it at no charge. They already make sure other ruder terms are filtered, and WTF does happen to be quite new.
Wow, that slideshow was hilarious. The only acronym on there that I think is even real is ASL. They're just trying to be sensationalist by making people go "Oh my god, my kids are speaking in secret code behind my back!". Please, who actually uses these things?
they r coming after mah car... WTF NOOB!!!11!one!!
Is this phrase next?
"I'm a slave of Karma, Spin the Wheel and I'm a king reborn."
The MVD? Really? I've lived in NC for 40 years off and on (mostly on) and I can tell you for sure that government department in question is the DMV. I believe that's an acronym for Dumb Mother Vuckers.
When I lived in North Carolina they were collecting money to build this huge industrial business park system that never came to fruition, how about giving back all that money they took in and never used it for what it was intended for!?
Global Trans Pork!
You Stupid C**ts. Spending my taxpayer dollars on such silliness? YFF (You're F**king Fired)
I think it's pretty much impossible to come up with three letters which don't make _something_ that could be construed as offensive.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
I saw one of these on campus many months ago. Here's the picture I took. http://therpham.googlepages.com/wtfplate.jpg
It's a license plate. It's not supposed to mean anything. Here's a quaint list of potential license plates that mean NOTHING:
FUCK911
MILF101
TARD500
187C0PS
OJD1D1T
-and-
WTFPROF
People who choose to be offended by anything and everything they see, should stay the fuck home and watch reruns. There was a time, not so long ago, when people had freakin' BALLS.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I dunno, I can imagine plenty of license plates people might not want (just as I can imagine other people who would WANT one of these):
SEX 666
GAY 911
ASS 669
FUK 400
(Assuming the 4 is unconnected at the top to look more like a Y). You might also be able to work POO, FUC, KKK, PIS (especially when followed by 5##), VAG, and XXX in there, though there aren't so many different numbers to pair them with. In a 7-digit license plate, you might also be able to get LES 8146 (lesbian, crudely, although the 6 makes it hard to see).
There are probably others I haven't thought of, not to mention that one that only shows up when reversed in the mirror...
No, that looks bad anyway. Somebody in Florida should try for S1N RGY, which looks like synergy...until you put that O in the middle.
WTF is not an aconym, since it can't be pronounced. I was taken to task on that one the other day.
I've made a bit of a hobby of finding odd/geeky plates, and have seen LOL, and have pictures of a WTF here in Washington, along with ones like SSL, URL, UTF...yeah I'm weird.
You all have Oo.o and Firefox, so get World Wind.
The NJ DMV issued me a plate in the late '80s: CUM-69X I inquired at the counter, the female employee stated "that' s gross" but couldn't change the tag. This was for a free car, '76 Mazda not even a GLC, with a bad clutch, head gasket, and a fuel gauge that did not work. I pulled a parking brake spin in the rain, hit a curb, then the fuel gauge worked. No help for the clutch or leaky gasket though. Sold the car for $200, wish I still had it, got 30+ MPG.
The light at the end of the tunnel is a train.
I remember hearing about a guy whose vanity plate got rejected. His request: "33M T33"
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
WTF?
Heh, nice play on the original "3M TA3", which is screened for by some (most?) DMV's now. The joke (for those who don't get it) is that if that is a plate on the front of the car, then the car in front of you will see (in their rearview mirror) "Eat Me"
<random_useless_trivia>It also appears as the number on the airplane on the Beastie Boys' License to Ill album. </random_useless_trivia>
Wow, This Feels Weird. To Fund Withdrawal The Feds Will Tax Far Worse. This Furore Will Take Forever!
One of my friends has the NC plate OMG WTF. Wonder if they will ask him to replace it now?
Guess this also means no WTF FTW
What's offensive about Worse Than Failure?
Lol. Don't they realise what else 'DMV' is an acronym for?
Requiem for the American Dream
http://www.wtf.org/ The World Taekwondo Federation. Even the badge on the uniform has a little WTF on it. Maybe the people who find WTF offensive are from the older more traditional ITF (International Taekwondo Federation) background.
While the word itself is no worse than any other word, I think it's the conveyed hostility that gets people's panties in a knot.
A word is just a word, and conveys no more and no less meaning that is assigned to it. That one word is obscene or offensive and another isn't, is, well, just because we needed to designate some words as offensive or obscene. Because essentially we needed to communicate just that message.
Even if you designed a language without swearwords, people will invent their own. See how people constructed a few for Esperanto.
But what gets people angry is the message, not the word. If I were to say, "You stupid arsehole!", it's not the individual words (after all, an arsehole is a vital part of the body;), it's the conveyed aggressive stance and intention to insult, demean, and diminish one's perceived worth.
And just as proof that it's not just the words: it can be done without words too. We already know from, say, MUD's and MMOs, that people get equally insulted when they're met with unwarranted hatred and aggression, out of nowhere. Almost everyone hates a ganker, even the other gankers that happen to end up on the wrong end of it, even if he doesn't say a single word.
It's that hostility which puts people in the only mode we're biologically programmed to use to deal with aggression: fight or flight. Once it's been triggered, well, you can override it by willpower, but essentially your programming says you either fight or go away from the source of the stress. If you're "cornered" and can't leave, you fight back. Verbally or otherwise. If you can't do either, you get frustrated.
At any rate, I don't think there is much of a qualitative difference between being called a "doodoo head" or a "cocksucker". The former is the child version of "I'm being aggressive and trying to demean you", the latter is the adult version. Different words, but the message is the same, and the reaction is the same.
As for why swearing is more acceptable today, I'd say that award should probably go to Hollywood. Everyone knows they're supposed to say "fuck" every other word. You can see the same in other countries too, albeit with different words, expressions, attitudes, etc. People find role models on the screen, and try to talk and act like them.
I wouldn't set my hopes too high, though. If a good, "fuck you, cocksucker" becomes devalued and useless to convey the insult as a message, we'll switch to other words. Or invent new words for that purpose.
The best you can do is just get people to play nice, and stop trying to act like aggressive chronic cases of testosterone poisoning. Not to get them to get over some words. If it's just the words, see the previous paragraph ;)
Maybe stopping beating up children can help with that. But it'll be just because it stops teaching them early that violence is the solution to everything, the way to get anything done, and that when they grow up they have to be an aggressive arsehole like their dad too. It'll be the change in role models and attitudes, that will matter in the end, not just being allowed to say "fuck." Words come and go and can be invented or shanghaied for any purpose, including for verbal aggression. What'll make a difference is people not needing a hostile stance and message as often.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
They will replace them for free? Hell, there is most likely a market for people WANTING to buy a plate with WTF in it...along with FFS, PIG, TIT, TOS, FUK, FUC, URF etc...
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
If I lived in NC... I'd want one of those plates.
I live in NC and one more part of this story should be told. They are recalling all the plates that start with 'XXX' because some fruit thought it offensive. I don't think it's offensive so why should I be penalized for this nutters pissy attitude.
WTF? Indeed.
Pax Vobiscum
Then sell them to internett people for a grand a pieace.
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
I would imagine that a lot of folks might want a WTF plate. In Illinois they won't issue a personalized tag they consider offensive, but some people manage to slide through.
I saw one a while back that I wondered if it was owned by a Chicago Bulls fan, or if he was just being snarky. It read
BULLS IT
(OT but somebody needs to fix this CSS. No wonder the blurb says idle.slashdot.org is a waste of time, never go there! It seems to have hapopened with the server move)
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I'm so glad I left the Southeast 10 years ago. I'm glad to see nothing has changed and ignorant moralists are still running the place.
The Ohio DMV gave me "FA66ET".
While it wasn't spelled correctly, I still got looks from quite a few passersby and fellow motorists.
After I couldn't take it any more, I went down and reported the plates stolen.
Did anyone read these acronyms? They are seriously like unbelievably unused or at least 90% of them are unused. Plus I don't know who would use them some of them have 7 letters like what time of acronyms has seven letters that isn't the name of an organization. Whoever wrote them needs to STFU.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
'nuff said
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Want To Fuck?
Welsh it is that I am, insensitive clod lookyou!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What the fuck are they doing, well hell thats just rediculous. So what if those three letters can mean something else...its a license plate, who cares.
Perhaps, they need to ban licence plates with the letters WTC. Especially, the licence plate WTC 007 may need censoring as this may lead people to question why WTC 7 collapsed in freefall at 5:20 pm on September 11, 2001.
people can get worked up about anything. Making mountains out of mole hills we used to call it.
I have a tat that says "FTW". So there.
. . . evil forces are creating and distributing offensive expressions over the Internet for every combination of three letters, using the Storm botnet. Then, after multiple postings on various sites, enough to get googled up, the bots automatically send an irate rant to the NC DMV. Given the immense power of the Storm botnet, and the gullibility of the NC DMV, 27^3 should take no time at all, before there will be no more non-offensive license plates in NC at all.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Hers is a vanity plate that says WTFWJD
I'm honestly not sure how to react to that. I *think* it's funny... but she doesn't seem like the hip, ironic type so at some point I'll just have to ask her about it.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Wow, bravo.
I'd request "ROFL" as a replacement.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
I want to know if we are now going to have a situation where EVERY combo with "f" in it could offend.
All I know is that I want WTF FTW as my plate
..but it does contain the letter "F." I just realized what that stands for! How dare the government force me to put curse words on my car!?!
My plate also contains the letter "S." Does anyone know any safe letters I can use on my replacement license plate?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
We are now being ruled...by an irate 60-year-old technology teacher.
Is there something wrong with this picture?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
NCS UXR
granny tech teacher needs to ESN D13
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
In an anthropology class I took in college, the professor mentioned that in cultures without a caste system, there are no swear words. Swear words evolve in caste systems as a way for "higher" people to differentiate themselves from "lower" people. Up to that point, words are just words.
Any plan which depends on a fundamental change in human behavior is doomed from the start.
Well, I do live in NC and I think this is a waste of my tax money. These moral do gooders have better things to do with my money than waste because someone was offended by WTF on their license plate. Get a grip conservative, this is as much of a waste of my tax dollars as programs that you hate liberals promoting! This is dumb! Stop wasting money!
(Modified to please the filter):
FYI... kma. smd. uya. fy*. ems. pmf. fkw.
TIA.
HTH.
I can't fucking believe the bullshit internet acronyms they list on that site. Also, if kids actually use these acronyms, I Want To Slap The Shit Out Of Them.
Rather, IWTSTSOOT.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
I know have OMFG l337
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
Every Slashdotter should immediately begin to devise and circulate as many "offensive" TLAs as possible. I don't know whether scatological would be as offensive as sexual, but given the number that are needed, they will probably be required.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
In southern Indiana, though I haven't any pics, after having milemarker 69 stolen so many times, for years, they had a "68+1" milemarker. But that was even more popular, so now, much like the thirteenth floor, the 69th mile is not marked.
Just a weird coincidence, but the local news (Fox News, Channel 10, Phoenix) had some meaningless story about text messaging last night.
The on screen teaser/banner read: WTF? TXTNG TRBL!
There are a few more countries ahead of us for the title of BEST buddies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_sales_to_Iraq. We would barely count as acquaintances.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
I actually am going to pay extra for a vanity plate that says WTFBBQ when my registration is up one of the guys at work has plates that say OMGWTF
And then there was E
Does this mean I can finally swap my tag (FAG 969)?
In Reason We Trust
15. What The Fork()
while (true) fork()?
"...conspicuously missing from the list are LOLCAT, T-O-GTFO, EFG, KTHXBYE, and UFIA. Your teen-aged child wants you to DIAF."