The Vanity Plates that Make No Sense
Sometimes I just don't get it. If you know me, you're not surprised. I can be slow. But even with factoring in my thick headedness, sometimes people are way too cryptic for their own good. Maybe someone can explain.
Specifically, I don't get vanity plates that make no sense. Why do people waste their money? Do they think they're cool? Because when I don't get it, and I think that most everyone else in the world doesn't understand either, I think it borders on stupid. Or at the least it is a waste of money and human resources. The prisoners that work on constructing the things could have been better employed.
If you have a vanity plate, don't take offense. And don't call me a hypocrite if you happen to recall the time when I had a vanity plate. I think there are plenty of legitimate uses for your own special plate. They include:
1. Clever uses of language that describe a person or family's condition, a nickname, or describe the vehicle, such as "fbigrad," "4our9," "4ian," "badguy," "eatdust."
2. An expression of your devotion to some hobby or interest, assuming that it is well known enough that a fair number of people will understand to what your license plate refers, even if many others are left in the dark. Examples include "soxfan," "patsfan," "rdsxnatn," "frodo," "24rocks," or "04wewon." Such expressions can engender feelings of love (or even hate) for the driver, as the plate expresses their personality in a meaningful (because it's comprehensible) way.
3. Some Bible verse or well known truism.
There are probably a few other categories under which a vanity plate can be effectively used. My belief is that it should make sense to a larger group than your circle of friends, as it seems a waste of money to buy something that 99.99 percent of all people who see it are left clueless as to its meaning.
One recent example of such apparent waste drove by me the other night as I returned from working my summer job: "5-4 us." What in the world does that mean? I puzzled over it, and am still wondering what it means. Possibilities include:
1. The couple that own this car are both 5 feet four inches tall.
2. It is commemorating some famous sports win in US Olympic history. But I have looked up the 1980 U.S. Hockey win over the Soviet Union, and that was not the score. They beat the Soviets 4-3, then Finland 4-2.
3. This is some code for the next planned terror attack on the US, and the driver is attempting to awake any sleeper cells who will see it that now is the time to act.
4. Someone is keeping track of the ideologies of the Supreme Court justices, and they think that a majority of them line up with their particular point of view.
5. It's the final score in some youth hockey game, or maybe little league baseball tournament, about which only a few know.
Beyond this, I am stumped. And I'm mystified as to why people waste their money this way. Why attempt to educate someone if your vocabulary is incomprehensible?
Specifically, I don't get vanity plates that make no sense. Why do people waste their money? Do they think they're cool? Because when I don't get it, and I think that most everyone else in the world doesn't understand either, I think it borders on stupid. Or at the least it is a waste of money and human resources. The prisoners that work on constructing the things could have been better employed.
If you have a vanity plate, don't take offense. And don't call me a hypocrite if you happen to recall the time when I had a vanity plate. I think there are plenty of legitimate uses for your own special plate. They include:
1. Clever uses of language that describe a person or family's condition, a nickname, or describe the vehicle, such as "fbigrad," "4our9," "4ian," "badguy," "eatdust."
2. An expression of your devotion to some hobby or interest, assuming that it is well known enough that a fair number of people will understand to what your license plate refers, even if many others are left in the dark. Examples include "soxfan," "patsfan," "rdsxnatn," "frodo," "24rocks," or "04wewon." Such expressions can engender feelings of love (or even hate) for the driver, as the plate expresses their personality in a meaningful (because it's comprehensible) way.
3. Some Bible verse or well known truism.
There are probably a few other categories under which a vanity plate can be effectively used. My belief is that it should make sense to a larger group than your circle of friends, as it seems a waste of money to buy something that 99.99 percent of all people who see it are left clueless as to its meaning.
One recent example of such apparent waste drove by me the other night as I returned from working my summer job: "5-4 us." What in the world does that mean? I puzzled over it, and am still wondering what it means. Possibilities include:
1. The couple that own this car are both 5 feet four inches tall.
2. It is commemorating some famous sports win in US Olympic history. But I have looked up the 1980 U.S. Hockey win over the Soviet Union, and that was not the score. They beat the Soviets 4-3, then Finland 4-2.
3. This is some code for the next planned terror attack on the US, and the driver is attempting to awake any sleeper cells who will see it that now is the time to act.
4. Someone is keeping track of the ideologies of the Supreme Court justices, and they think that a majority of them line up with their particular point of view.
5. It's the final score in some youth hockey game, or maybe little league baseball tournament, about which only a few know.
Beyond this, I am stumped. And I'm mystified as to why people waste their money this way. Why attempt to educate someone if your vocabulary is incomprehensible?
posted by redsoxwinthisyear at 8:46 PM
6 Comments:
Maybe it's just a cute way of saying there are five people in their family. Or five children in their family. "Five for us!" ("Ten for them.") That would make sense to all of their family and friends, and anyone who happened to drive by and count their kids. If you didn't count their kids, maybe they weren't all in the car.
sigh, you don't get vanity plates, do you?
They are called VANITY plates. It is not to "educate" others. It is for our own enjoyment, and if others can't understand it, well, tough cookies :-)
vanity plates are just for the person who got them and if anyone else understands it, that is just bonus points[that is my take on vp's anyway]...
Apparently "educate" rubbed someone the wrong way! :-) Perhaps it's not quite the right word.
But I still say if the language is meaningless (at least to a vast majority), why pay for it?
well, I guess if you can't understand, then you just can't :-)
I came up with the same answer as KMS. Five kids! Kinda like the "4 our 9" people we know.
But I know what you mean about the whole issue...Brad had a coworker once who had a vp with a strange, incomprehensible word on it...and he asked him one day what it meant and the guy said that he was writing a a novel- and it was one of the character's names. But it was totally weird and sci-fi or something. Not like a normal name.
I agree that it's totally pointless if you are the ONLY ONE who knows...I think it must be kind of like some sort of Freudian thing that reveals ones' narcissism or something...
I suppose a vanity plate could be a cute way of being mysterious...
...it may invite comments and questions from strangers and acquaintances thereby bringing a bit of satisfaction to the gregarious soul? 8~)
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