Staff at the Daily Moaner are reeling at the news which has reached them, (three months late as usual). Just like yourselves, we can hardly wait for our copy of the Daily Utah Chronicle , the student paper at the University of Utah, and were aghast that it hadn’t arrived.
Now, tipped off by a post on modern journalism at Anna Raccoon’s site, (which you should read), we can bring you the story.
As you may know, when the senior staff of the Chronicle graduate and leave the campus, it has become traditional for their farewell messages to appear in columns, where the drop-caps spell out a naughty word. Wow — student humour, eh? Gotta love it. (Though our very own Flanders and Swann did this sort of thing years ago, with their song “Pee, Po, Belly, Bum, Drawers !”)
Quick! The Smelling Salts!
In previous years, the aforesaid rude words have included BALLS, BITCH, TWAT and CUM. (Actually, they did CUM twice, which isn’t always easy). More detail in this story from the Salt Lake City Weekly.
This year’s offering though, apparently has gone too far for the University administration. With nine of the staff graduating, the words selected were PENIS and… um… well, see for yourself. Though the two words do seem… fitting… in some subtle way.
At first, it seemed as though the administration would refuse the diplomas at graduation, but after a somewhat terse interview with the Dean, all has been forgiven, and the students can go on to glittering American careers in water-boarding, usury and election-vote-rigging, etc.
Incidentally, the Daily Utah Chronicle is well worth reading, much better value for money than any of our English newspapers. We hate to say anything good about the Americans, but they definitely have the edge on us with this.