Re: USAGE: names for pillbug/wood louse/woodbug
| From: | Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, March 15, 2004, 20:40 |
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On Mon, Mar 15, 2004 at 12:14:38PM -0800, Philippe Caquant wrote:
> I think it's a problem for car plates, because it must
> be rather difficult to find some which don't bring
> jokes around, at least if you use series of 3 letters
> (and the English do, I think). Suppose your car plate
> mentions BAG, or BUG, or even BOG ? (is O allowed ? in
> France, it's not).
The rules for license plates in the US vary from state to state. Those
states which intermix letters and numbers may skip O in order to avoid
confusion with 0, and may also skip I to avoid confusion with 1, but
here in Georgia the letters and numbers in the normal plates are
separated (the normal pattern is "ABC 1234"), so no confusion arises.
There is still the possibility of confusion in vanity plates, however,
which allow the vehicle owner to request any combination of 7 letters and
digits in any order, subject to review and approval by the Department
of Motor Vehicles.
Certain patterns are often skipped in the automatic enumeration; you
mentioned ASS, and other candidates are FUC, FUK, GOD, etc. The
fully-spelled forms are also rejected in vanity applications.
-Mark
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