Reader Comments: Here. Try some fun for a change.

Tom Garrett 11 months, 1 week ago

Would you have approved this license plate?

Whitney Calk, reportedly a Tennessee vegetarian with high ideals, wanted--so she says--a license plate to let everyone know about it. Being a tofu lover, she asked the state license plate agency to approve one that said this:

(PS: There were no dashes in Whitney's plate. I had to add them between the capital letters or else the Roundup program would turn them all into lower case letters.)

I-L-V-T-O-F-U.

She says, "When I see T-O-F-U, I see tofu."

Good for you, Whitney, that's not what some people would see there.

The plate was turned down.

Whitney, who also happens to be an animal rights activist, something I would never have guessed, adds, "I can't control the way anyone else interprets that."

How true. How true. But the state can.

The article from Reuters sides with the state agency. It said, "The vast majority of the requests are not objectionable, but thousands provide insight not only into the boundaries of free speech but the amount of human ingenuity expended to display seven and eight character insults, sexual references and descriptions of bodily functions to other motorists."

And they gave some examples, but you'll have to go to Reuters to read them.

Virginia seems to have the biggest problem. One in seven plates there are personalized because VA is dumb enough to only charge ten bucks for one. Last year they had to turn down 700 of them, including, I-H-A-V-2-P I-A-M-H-I-G-H I-P-U-N-C-H-U D-M-Y-A-N-K-I

Maryland, the report said, has its problems too. T-O-I-L-E-T and W-I-L-D-P-I-G seem big there.

On the other hand, Florida has approved: O-2-B-N-U-D-E B-A-R-E-A-L-L B-N-A-K-E-D

Mitt Romney's ex state (M-A) is trying out a sneaky move. You cannot use I, O, U or Q except "as part of a word that is clearly defined and correctly spelled."

There are a couple of others I wouldn't put them up here. I'd like to know who thought of them, especially one that got approved by Virginia and has to be read upside down.

Go look it up.

And for kids who think they invented all this....

O-U-K-I-D

Popular song. 1909

In the 30's we used to chalk it on the sidewalk.

U-P-N-C-M-E

Mae West's Model X Duesenberg license plate. 1926

1-2-4-C-4-1

Title of an early science fiction story by Hugo Gernsback, where a robot was named Ralph 1-2-4-C-4-1. 1911

C-M-N-E-D-A-Y

Tom Garrett, age 6, kindergarten, sent to Doris Brooks, 57 Brook Street, Staten Island, New York in a hand made valentine day card. PS 16. 1938

(more tomorrow)

How about some of yours?

Tom Garrett 11 months ago

I have more of this stuff, but I'll wait until you've had a chance to digest the first post.

Dan Haapala 11 months ago

I've always been facinated by personalized plates and try to decipher them every time I see them. Here's one that was part of a puzzle The plate appeared on a White 1980 Volkswagen Rabbit and simply said " IML8" The quiz was to determine the make and color of the car with only the plate as reference. Do you get it?

Tom Garrett 11 months ago

I get it, Dan.

"...for a very important date." Nicely thought out, wasn't it? I like things like that.

Back in Connecticut you used to be able to get a license plate with a single digit on it, such as 1, 2, 3, and so on. I do not remember whether there was anything else on the plate, or if there was what it was, but there must have been something.We used to play a "game" in which you watched license plates as you went through life, trying to see how far you could go, starting at seeing a number 1 and so on.

I got all the way up to number 32 between 1943 and 1955, when I left CT for good. And on my trips back there over the years I suppose I was no longer looking.

Here's a little more of the 1-2-4-C-4-1 thing. By the way, had any of you heard of that famous sci-fi robot? Ralph 1-2-4-C-4-1 ?

Up to about the sixth grade we used to send Valentines Day cards that said things like:

2-Y-S-U-R 2-Y-S-U-B I think you are, 2-Y-S-4-me.

Or:

U-R-2-good-2-B-4-got-1-0

How about this atrocious thing from grade school?

A-B-C-M puppies? M-O puppies. M kitty cats!

This one came from my sophomore year high school English text book.

The ice was thin, The wind was brisk, I think that she was crazy, Her little *.

Now that's what I call using the language efficiently!

Here's a thought that just popped into my head. Instead of that fish emblem we often see on cars that declare a Christian, why not a license plate that says this? I-8-B-8

Now there's a puzzle.

Back in New York City in the 40's all the boys were still wearing knickers, but when I moved to New London in the 7th grade I was the only kid in the entire school wearing them. For some reason the New England kids took them to be some thing rich kids wore.

I once got a Valentine card with a pic of a rich kid on it that said, You may be city bread, but your paw supplies the butter. For "bread" was a loaf of bread; for "butter" was a pound of butter, and "paw" was a cat's paw.

Here's another thought that just popped into my head. Bill Clinton's license plate: I-M-4-F.

What if they would let us use the option key symbols?

Like: ¥-4-U or √-M-Y- or I-M-4-†

My plate, I am sorry to say, would still be whatever the state issued.

Why?

I-M-S-Q-A-R-E