We were wondering why our traffic was very high today and then discovered the reason: Our list of words you couldn’t put on the back of an NFL jersey (our most-viewed page ever) was back in the news. It seems that it mirrors that being considered by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, which wants to ban certain words from text messages.

Intrepid Internet sleuths who examined the proposed PTA list noticed it was identical with the NFL's list. As Deadspin noted:

The list included phrases like “Rae Carruth,” “Neon Deon,” and “He Hate Me,”— all things that would be strange to text in a casual conversation in Pakistan because they all have a lot to do with the NFL.

We were wondering why our traffic was very high today and then discovered the reason: Our list of words you couldn’t put on the back of an NFL jersey (our most-viewed page ever) was back in the news. It seems that it mirrors that being considered by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, which wants to ban certain words from text messages.

Intrepid Internet sleuths who examined the proposed PTA list noticed it was identical with the NFL’s list. As Deadspin noted:

The list included phrases like “Rae Carruth,” “Neon Deon,” and “He Hate Me,”— all things that would be strange to text in a casual conversation in Pakistan because they all have a lot to do with the NFL.

The PTA is now deferring implementing the list after it has met with much derision and confusion. The list we published in 2005 came after we reported that the NFL would not allow “gay” to appear on personalized jerseys (but did allow ones like “Gay Nazi”.) The league reversed it decision the next day.

The proposed move by the PTA seems incredibly silly and impossible to implement, and you know people will discover all sorts of euphemisms to get around it. But it is very funny that someone in Pakistan, obviously trolling the Internet for dirty words, stumbled across Outsports and used the list.

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