Slashdot Mirror
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!
I'd like to buy one. Will they ship out of state?
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
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...
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
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
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
.....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
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!
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).
I bet any amount of money they made the majority of those up to look tech savvy.
I imagin if I started typing PAL all the time while chatting, my friends would just think I'm trying to shout the word, not use it as an acronym.
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.
WTF? Still can't turn off
this section in preferen
ces. (And the greasemo
nkey scripts I was reco
mmended don't work so
well...)
Someone over at Slashd
ot really needs to take a
serious look at why the
comment field is so stup
id narrow. Why, it's almo
st almost unusably narr
ow. I mean, how difficult
would it be to set the fiel
d to a usable width? Ju
st multiply the width by a
bout a factor of five or si
x. Or better yet, use a
percentage, like say nin
ety percent or somethin
g in that neighbourhood.
Sheesh!
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
http://www.microsoft.com/sverige/athome/security/children/leetspeak.mspx
OH SHIT THE CAT IS OUT OF THE BAG
PARENT OVER SHOULDER!!!
PARENT OVER SHOULDER!!!
(alksjf;klajsldjf alskdjflasjfla sdklfajsldkfj alskdfjklasjdflakdjflkajdflkajdflkadjfalksdjf)
Scorta futuere amo!
Hey, here in Virginia the state charges for a "WTF" license plate. Now that's good governance.
Everyone knows a slideshow is the only way to express ideas you know nothing about.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
That's a great link, and even funnier after I realized it wasn't a parody. Here's my guide to leetspeak for parents... it's like your kids are speaking pig latin or using a decoder ring. Now stop being an over-dramatic control freak, you're going to warp your children.
--even though there are technically only three races--
Um.... Last I checked man, there was the *HUMAN* race. So, I'm not sure what "3" you're talking about.
Your mind is like a parachute. It works best when it's been opened.
I'm writing this at 1920x14
40. The problem is, I use
this resolution, in part, bec
ause I want to see more o
n the screen. I'd say the t
ext box is taking up mayb
e 1/8 th of the window, foll
owed by nothing for 7/8th
of the screen. What a was
te of space.
Maybe not
WTF is not an aconym, since it can't be pronounced. I was taken to task on that one the other day.
Caucazoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Wow, This Feels Weird. To Fund Withdrawal The Feds Will Tax Far Worse. This Furore Will Take Forever!
What's offensive about Worse Than Failure?
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.
You guys do know that you can set the width and height of the reply box using that "Options" button beneath it, right?
I've set it to 80x25 once, and that was that...
np: Lyrics Born - Do U Buy It? (Everywhere At Once)
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
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.
Does this mean I can finally swap my tag (FAG 969)?
In Reason We Trust