The Cock Mightier than the Dong

June 30, 2008 4:22 PM

Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials - The American Family Association's OneNewsNow site gets caught promoting the homosexual agenda. "As late as 9:45am ET today, the online version below referenced the runner as 'Tyson Homosexual'" instead of Tyson Gay. (via)
posted by mrgrimm (25 comments total)

All the stories on reddit have him as "Tyson Homosexual," so for about 5 hours today I thought that was his real name.

Reality....it's subjective
posted by hellojed at 4:28 PM on June 30, 2008

Flagged as 'other'
posted by yort at 4:29 PM on June 30, 2008

Just because this tiresome non-story is everywhere else on the internet today, does that mean it has to be posted to metafilter, as well?
posted by dersins at 4:29 PM on June 30, 2008

One apocryphal story about this kind of thing was that a financial report about a company returning to profitability had the phrase "in the black" inadvertantly transformed to "in the African-American".
posted by Class Goat at 4:38 PM on June 30, 2008

what exactly are we supposed to discuss here?
posted by xbonesgt at 4:38 PM on June 30, 2008

I think we're just supposed to point at the idiots and laugh. Fair enough.
posted by Epenthesis at 4:43 PM on June 30, 2008

OMG "Tyson" !!!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:43 PM on June 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

Weird anecdote: I was a former sportswriter. In journalistic parlance, noting that something is "cq" means that "Yes, I know it looks like it's spelled funny, but trust me, this is how you spell it. I'm warranting to everyone that the aforementioned word/name is spelled and referenced correctly."

Typically the "cq" mark appears immediately after that which is considered "cq." And then an editor reviews it all and removes the "cq" mark just before publication.

This made for some entertaining stories about the basketball player Andrew DeClercq. Half the time, you'd see his name spelled "DeCler" because someone thought that the "cq" in his name wasn't actually part of his name.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:43 PM on June 30, 2008 [7 favorites]

I'm laughing so hard right now I'm tearing up.
posted by nola at 4:46 PM on June 30, 2008

When I read the following headline over someone's shoulder on the Metro this morning....

Gay runs 100 in windy 9.68 to make US Olympic team

... my first thought was "dammit, I hate it when they use it as a noun like that." Followed a second later by the realization that it's his name. Then a brief musing on style guidelines followed, and we were at my stop. Welcome to my brain at 9 AM.
posted by Tehanu at 4:50 PM on June 30, 2008

It's an example of a clbuttic problem resulting from naive design of swear filters. It backfires on words like "title" and "assassinate", which end up sounding more crude after translation.
posted by kurumi at 4:50 PM on June 30, 2008 [2 favorites]

My distant cousin, Ampersand "LT" Semicolon-Blink-Ampersand GT-Semicolon, had similar things happen all the time.

I knew marrying into multiple generations of Ampersands was wrong but to be so universally shunned...
posted by davemee at 4:51 PM on June 30, 2008

It is a crime against humanity that this guy's mom didn't name him Area.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:53 PM on June 30, 2008 [2 favorites]

What's all this hubbub about Chicken Queer?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:56 PM on June 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

Yes, I found this outstandingly funny.

But if you think about it, it's really an old meme, which is "machine takes over task formerly done by humans and makes hilarious error".
posted by Tube at 4:56 PM on June 30, 2008

at least they don't call him "Tyson Fag"
posted by matteo at 4:59 PM on June 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

The New York Times once referred to Nelson Mandela as African-American.
posted by king walnut at 5:00 PM on June 30, 2008 [2 favorites]

Gosh, I love heartwarming stories about the disabled.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 5:01 PM on June 30, 2008

They just don't know how to deal with a gay person they can't catch.

(also, I hope nobody tells these people about Fred Flintstone having a gay old time. It would destroy Stone Age Family Values).
posted by jonmc at 5:02 PM on June 30, 2008

Awful. Simply, breathtakingly puerile and vapid; completely without merit, use or value.
posted by boo_radley at 5:03 PM on June 30, 2008

On the forum I run we set the word-replace filters to weird things just to amuse ourselves. Sometimes they're obscure enough that it takes weeks for someone to notice and start complaining about it, but it's always worth the wait.

Anyway, I don't think 'rightwingwatch.org' is really the best source for a FPP, is it?
posted by loiseau at 5:03 PM on June 30, 2008

Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials
Good lube.
posted by WolfDaddy at 5:03 PM on June 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

Wow, that link to the American Family Foundation is a riot.

THEY'RE COMING TO YOUR TOWN! order your copy today

Torn by Porn? DEFEAT IT! American Family Filter!

Newt Gingrich Offers Common Sense Solution to Energy Crisis
posted by Flunkie at 5:03 PM on June 30, 2008

I first saw the name "Tyson Gay" on a McDonalds Future Olympic Star Promotional Bag. It resulted in a 42-ounce-for-69-cents spit-take. I thought about how this kid grew up and wondered why he wasn't an Olympic Boxer. His mother must've told him it was better to run away. And it worked INCREDIBLY well.

Am I being Politically Incorrect enough for yah?
posted by wendell at 5:08 PM on June 30, 2008

Area homosexual saves four from fire
posted by punishinglemur at 5:08 PM on June 30, 2008