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WTF? NC Offers to Replace 10,000 License Plates

Posted by timothy on from the what-if-I'm-offended-by-prudery? dept.

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."

11 of 467 comments (clear)

  1. The real story is the clueless teacher by HycoWhit · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...

    1. Re:The real story is the clueless teacher by merreborn · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I know a ex-yahoo employee who liked wearing this shirt around the office. It has a bunch of 'net acronyms on it -- "omg wtf stfu pwn4d uran00b lmaorotf kthxbye:p" -- in the format of an eye chart.

      Sadly, apparently many of his fellow yahoos recognized few, if any of the acronyms. You'd hope these guys would be a little more in touch with the people who use their products...

      Suffice it to say, I'm willing to cut this teacher a little slack. Most people in the US don't speak our language. Even those in the industry, apparently.

  2. POS by d34thm0nk3y · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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!

  3. The only thing more stupid..... by Stanislav_J · · Score: 4, Interesting

    .....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
    1. Re:The only thing more stupid..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I think the ultimate in stupidity must have been the day that a United Airlines flight (UA840) got turned around about 1.5 hours out of Australia because someone found a sickbag in the toilet with 'Bob' written on it.

      Rather than thinking that 'Bob' is a fairly common name, or could stand for many different things, they decided to assume that 'Bob' stood for 'Bomb on Board' and of course at that point all common sense left the building.

      Apparently not only did this one plane turn around, but after it landed they pretty much shut down the entire airport, cancelled all outgoing flights and diverted all incoming flights elsewhere, "just to be on the safe side".

  4. Lucky... by ack154 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  5. what about my NC license plate? by tblake · · Score: 1, Interesting

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/tbblake/2574364342/

  6. It started with road signs by Sanat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
  7. I have one of these by SkankinMonkey · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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? :)

  8. Re:Way To Fail by Vreejack · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Internet jargon? A friend got in a little trouble for writing "WTF?" on a student's essay back in '84. He explained that it stood for "What's this for?" But the acronym probably dates back at least to WW2.

    --
    "Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!" -- Ivanhoe
  9. Re:Way To Fail by glittalogik · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That is one of the things I love in Kurt Vonnegut's The Big Space Fuck:

    ...so even the President was saying shit and fuck and so on, without anybody's feeling threatened or taking offense. It was perfectly OK. He called the Space Fuck a Space Fuck and so did everybody else...

    On the other hand Bush has been making inroads in that direction...