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BULLGRIT is offensive?

So I got a letter from the North Carolina DMV telling me there had been complaints, (plural), about my personalized license plate, BULLGRIT.

DMV letter

Someone — more than one person — thinks that my plate, and therefore, my online and business name, is “offensive and in poor taste.” Wha?

So, I wrote back to the Special License Plate Unit Supervisor and explained:

This letter is the response you’ve requested regarding my license plate BULLGRIT. You asked me to explain what this personalized plate represents or means.

BULLGRIT® is my online/Internet name, under which I maintain a blog and t-shirt design business. It is also registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office.

www.totalbullgrit.com

www.totalbullgrit.com/blog

www.totalbullgrit.com/tshirts

www.facebook.com/bullgrit

My blog and my t-shirts are specifically family friendly — themed around fatherhood and life in the South. I’ve used Bullgrit as an online name for around 20 years, and as a business name for over 7 years. I’ve had the personalized license plate for at least 5 years.

I’m including a couple of my business cards with this letter. If you have any questions, or if I need to explain further, please let me know. Thank you.

Now, although I’m surprised that someone could or would take offense at my name, I refrained from being snarky in my reply. This supervisor probably gets complaints on license plates all the time, so she definitely didn’t need extra grief from me. Heck, I bet she doesn’t even really review the complaints, but rather, probably just generates a form letter to the plate owner. I’m assuming this because a quick Google search would have revealed what my license plate refers to.

A couple weeks later, I get the reply to my explanation:

So I get to keep my license plate. Not that losing it would cause me any harm or trouble, I’ve just come to really like it after these several years of having it.

But what in the world did the complainers think BULLGRIT meant? Since there isn’t any other meaning than my name — it’s a completely made up word — how could they take offense? It just goes to show that some people go through life trying to be offended. They look for any and every opportunity to clutch their pearls and gasp in righteous indignation. Just because they don’t recognize something, or don’t know what something is doesn’t mean it’s in any way offensive or poor taste. Sometimes a complaint says more about the ridiculousness of the complainer than of the object of their offense.

Bullgrit

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