• License Plates Day (25 April)

    From Ross Clark@21:1/5 to All on Fri Apr 26 23:30:43 2024
    "How many people recognize the day isn't at all clear."
    Not me, anyway.

    Crystal briefly discusses prohibitions on words not permitted on
    personalized ("vanity") plates. There have been a couple of cases here
    recently -- one involving "NUTSAX" and one, amazingly, "KAREN". The
    latter was actually the car owner's name, but since the name "Karen" has
    been weaponized to denote a particular type of annoying person, someone
    felt obliged to complain that it was offensive -- actually a
    stereotypically "Karen"ish thing to do. The NZ Transport Agency, who
    deal with these matters, apparently have no linguistic clues at all,
    judging by the fact that they took this seriously even for a minute.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Aidan Kehoe@21:1/5 to All on Fri Apr 26 14:52:44 2024
    Ar an séú lá is fiche de mí Aibreán, scríobh Ross Clark:

    "How many people recognize the day isn't at all clear."
    Not me, anyway.

    Not me.

    Crystal briefly discusses prohibitions on words not permitted on personalized ("vanity") plates. There have been a couple of cases here recently -- one involving "NUTSAX" and one, amazingly, "KAREN". The latter was actually the car owner's name, but since the name "Karen" has been weaponized to denote a particular type of annoying person, someone felt obliged to complain that it was offensive -- actually a stereotypically "Karen"ish thing to do. The NZ Transport Agency, who deal with these matters, apparently have no linguistic clues at all, judging by the fact that they took this seriously even for a minute.

    I’m fully in favour of vanity licence (number) plates, as long as they are more
    expensive than normal licence plates. They’re like patents, a revenue source for the government that those paying for them are happy to pay. The exact opposite of taxation.

    --
    ‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
    How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
    (C. Moore)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)