Tyson Homosexual back in the headlines
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When we last posted about Tyson Gay, he'd been entertainingly cupertinoed. And now, from Reuters on July 3, this:
Tired Gay succumbs to Dix in 200 meters
Oh, those sex-obsessed gay men! They can't even get 200 meters, can't even manage a 200-meter race, before yielding to the lure of dicks. (Hat tip to Loren McMullen Jonaitis, who was not the hundredth person to send this to me, as she feared.)
If only Tyson had won. Then we could have had
Tired Gay licks Dix in 200 meters
Note that in addition to the racy unintended pun on /dɪks/, the head also has a subtle (but entirely unproblematic, and in the context, inconsequential) ambiguity in in 200 meters: 'in the length of 200 meters', 'in the 200-meter race'.
David L said,
July 9, 2010 @ 1:44 pm
Unintended pun? Not necessarily. Headline writers love mischief of this sort. I might have said "Tired Gay yields to Dix…" instead.
James McDermott said,
July 9, 2010 @ 2:03 pm
Ahem — are you really to overlook succumbs?
Jason Cullen said,
July 9, 2010 @ 3:06 pm
Arnold, get someone to carry your luggage at rentboy.com and get back to something interesting!
Rubrick said,
July 9, 2010 @ 4:32 pm
I feel oblliged to initiate a tedious debate by wondering whether the original Gay/Homosexual replacement should really be called a Cupertino, or whether that term should be resevered for spell-checker-caused errors.
If the National Board of Recreational Linguistic Jargon feels like taking up the matter, I propose that search-and-replace-gone-amok errors be referred to as "dawizards"
[(amz) The larger category of errors is that caused by search-and-replace software, including spellcheckers. I'm using cupertino for both the larger category and for the category of spellchecker-caused errors; it's very common for a term to be used for both a more specific category and a more general one, and that normally causes no problems in context. If we want, when the context calls for it (as it might when we want to explain the form of particular erroneous substitutions) we can distinguish spellchecker-caused erroneous substitutions and taboo-avoidance-caused erroneous substitutions and editing-revision-caused erroneous substitutions, and we can give distinct names to all of the categories involved (the three I just mentioned, and perhaps others, and the umbrella category subsuming them all). But I don't see that there's anything to have an "argument" over here.]
fs said,
July 9, 2010 @ 5:53 pm
Rubrick: Haha, I second that!
Bobbie said,
July 9, 2010 @ 6:10 pm
Is no one else going to comment on the double entendre of Licks Dix?
[(amz) Can't I be allowed to have my poor little joke without comment? It was, after all, my little joke, not something from Reuters. And I just hate explaining my little jokes, especially when they're not very clever.]
theophylact said,
July 9, 2010 @ 6:13 pm
What happened to "fagged" as a synonym for "tired"?
Gary said,
July 9, 2010 @ 8:37 pm
It's possible that the real cupertino here is tired for Tyson. He certainly doesn't look tired in the picture.
[(amz) You can't tell from appearances. (Presumably the reporter had other reasons for referring to Tyson Gay as "tired".) It's not uncommon for marathoners, for example, to finish a race looking perfectly fine, only to turn out to be temporarily aphasic from diminished blood flow to their brains, or to collapse just after they get over the finish line.]
Ralph Hickok said,
July 9, 2010 @ 9:21 pm
Gay said he was tired, which is a pretty good reason for reporting it. This was his first race since May, because he's been out with a hamstring injury.
Sili said,
July 9, 2010 @ 11:03 pm
Dawizard?
No it's "cdesign proponentsists".
[(amz) What substution scheme gets you from creationists to cdesign proponentsists? Certainly not replacing creation by design. And working backwards, removing design proponents from cdesign proponentsists leaves the puzzling residue cists. So this looks like, not a substitution scheme, but a one-shot cut 'n' paste error, a botched attempt to replace creationists by design proponents.]
ella said,
July 10, 2010 @ 12:02 am
oh dear, this one was recently re-posted by many of my FB friends, and it didn't occur to me to send it to you guys because I figured everyone else would have done so already. However. I only recognised who Tyson Gay was due to your previous "Tyson Homosexual" posts, so there's that, anyway.
Claw said,
July 10, 2010 @ 5:02 am
Rubrick said:
The taboo-avoidance-caused erroneous substitutions is specifically called the Scunthorpe problem. In fact, the Tyson Homosexual incident is cited right in this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem
Ellen K said,
July 10, 2010 @ 10:06 am
Seems to me, despite citing that incident, that the Scunthorpe problem is really a different issue, filtering rather than substitution. Or, rather I guess, it's a wider term, not specifically for the substitution error.
Olof Hellman said,
July 10, 2010 @ 5:18 pm
Re the scope of Cupertino: In addition to spellchecker-caused errors, the prevalence of auto-correct, type-ahead and input method related errors is much increasing as these technologies become more prevalent, but all of them seem to fit naturally as 'Cupertinos' (perhaps 'Cupertinoes' should be the eye winkingly appropriate plural)
I endorse separating taboo-avoidance snafus under the heading of Scunthorpes'.
Graeme said,
July 12, 2010 @ 7:59 am
Bit off topic, but this headline from the Brisbane Times today should make the crash blossom finals:
'Police Must Feel Run Over Boy's Terror: Mother'
http://m.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/police-must-feel-run-over-boys-terror-mother-20100712-1078c.html
Charles said,
July 12, 2010 @ 1:06 pm
Using "the 100 meters" as shorthand for "100 meter race" is common in sports reporting, and I don't think many readers would be confused, unless they're reading the sports section for the first time. No different than saying "Spain beats Netherlands in World Cup finals" instead of "Spain beats Netherlands in World Cup finals soccer match."
Interestingly, if it's a hurdle rather than a straight sprint, the hurdles seem to be always mentioned. "Jones wins 220m hurdles."
Sometimes, of course, it isn't that obvious. My local paper has a painful habit of headlines like "Tulane loses 3-2" which give no hint of the sport. Baseball? Softball? Soccer (men's or womens)? Probably not basketball.