Tuesday, June 20, 2006

The best rejection slip EVER

Got this email today from a site to which I sent one of my essays:

This is a family friendly site. Some of your wording is innappropriate. eg. penis. Please edit and resubmit if you wish.


PEEEEEEEEEEENIS!

I don't know that I've ever seen anything funnier than "eg. penis." I can't even articulate why I can't look at "eg. penis" without snorting my Diet Coke, but it slays me.

How is penis unfriendly to families? We wouldn't even HAVE many families without penises! And how is that a matter of "wording," exactly? I should say ding dong or something instead? Pee pee?

11 Comments:

At 12:32 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Change it to "winky" or "peeter" and call it a day *chuckle*

 
At 8:25 AM, Blogger CrankyProf said...

You're not allowed to mention those nasssssty genitals! We hates them, precious, o yes we does! People might think that their naughty bits could be used for fun, not procreation.

I mean, if people are just allowed to say the word "penis" indiscriminately, it might lead to impure thoughts or actions!

(All of this makes me just want to e-mail them a list of every euphemism for penis I can come up with.)

 
At 8:40 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh, that IS rich.

As is the use of the words "indiscriminate" and "penis" in the same sentence. Ooo, ooo, I've got it. Check it out. "The Indiscriminate Penis: The Unauthorized Biography of Dr. Shell."

 
At 9:32 AM, Blogger Rees said...

Well, seriously. If anything could do with some demystifying...

 
At 10:23 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Do you think they would object to "tallywhacker"? (Hehe - I said "whack").

 
At 10:28 AM, Blogger Rees said...

Slut!

(Speaking of, did Lu just call *me* a slut?)

Cranky, your comment is particularly hilarious because the offending essay is a Freudian reading of Lord of the Rings.

How do you talk about Freudian criticism without saying penis? Phallic is all over the thing too, though they didn't mention that. Maybe they don't know what it means?

 
At 8:58 AM, Blogger CrankyProf said...

"Sauron's Minas Morgul is basically a stand-in for his totally inadequate penis. As is Stephen King's "Dark Tower." Both of them use their towers to compensate for their 'shortcomings.' We shall not get in to the racial implications of both King's and Sauron's dark meat."

 
At 2:30 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hee! Would I call you something like that? *insert pseudo-shocked look here*

Yeah...a Freudian reading that substitutes "totally inadequate ding-dong" for "totally inadequate penis" just really doesn't have the same cachet, does it?

 
At 10:45 PM, Blogger Rees said...

"Would I call you something like that?"

Hey, you should've seen me in college! Oh, wait, you did...

 
At 10:49 PM, Blogger Rees said...

Ha, cranky!

I don't think you were around when I posted it, but the offending essay is just a version of this old post: http://shelleyrees.blogspot.com/2006/01/most-of-my-students-can-say-penis-out.html

 
At 8:39 PM, Blogger CP said...

Use "schmekel" like all of we Jews do. It is accepted at more places than American Express.

CP.

 

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