Or, at least, an editor who’s spent a little time kicking around the internet.
Check out this headline on the front of a recent edition of the Manila Mail, a weekly based in San Francisco and aimed at the Filipino market.
That’s a double word score of sorts for anyone with a dirty mind. Both “MILF” and “FAP” are acronyms for R-rated phrases. And the latter, in fact, is a typo.
MILF, in this case, means Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a militant group based in the southern islands of the Philippines. But in fact, it also means something entirely different — to U.S. readers under a certain age, perhaps.
And AFP means the Armed Forces of the Philippines. However, that’s not the way it’s spelled here, of course. FAP means something entirely different — again, to the internet culture.
The page was posted Monday at Reddit. Thanks much to Ryan Smith of the New Orleans Times-Picayune for tweeting this last night.
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You know who else needs a copy editor?
Local TV news operations. Chicago’s WMAQ-TV in particular. And Harrisburg’s Fox43 TV news. And Local 15 News in Mobile, Ala. And Fox2Now in St. Louis. And KTLA channel 5 in Los Angeles. And Charlotte’s WBTV. And other local TV news operations. And CBS local media. And the web operation for DC101 radio. And CNN and CNN Money and Fox News (and Fox News again) and ABC News and the BBC and German news channel N24. And Martha Stewart’s TV operation. And the Disney Channel. And creators of mobile apps. And Google News’ ‘bots. And Baseball jersey manufacturers. And Georgetown University. And Kansas State University. And the University of Iowa. And the New York Jets, the Minnesota Vikings, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Washington Nationals (boy, do they need a copy editor). And the National Hockey League. And Fox Sports. And college athletic department ticket offices. And the Virginia general assembly. And college alumni magazines. And pharmacies. And the makers of Sudafed. And Borders bookstore. And the U.S. Postal Service. And government agencies and political candidates. And Tea Party candidates. And the White House. And city and county Boards of Elections. Both the state of Pennsylvania and its department of transportation. And Pittsburgh skywriters. And road paving contractors. And the city of Norfolk, Va. And the Ohio Dept. of Transportation. And South African traffic cops. And gas stations. And billboard companies. And sign painters. And Home Depot and manufacturers of “hoodies.†And T-shirt designers. And more T-shirt designers. And Old Navy. And rubber stamp designers. And glass etchers. And Starbucks. And restaurants, breakfast joints, Chinese restaurants and cake decorators. And more cake decorators. And drive-in movie theater managers. And romance novelists. And South Africa’s New Age and Sunday Independent newspapers. And Dublin’s Sunday Business Post. And the Echo of Gloucestershire, England. And the South China Morning Post. And the Washington Post (Hey! A repeat offender!), the Post‘s Express tab (Hey! Another repeat offender!) the New York Times (Yet another repeat offender!), the New York Post, Wall Street Journal Europe, Newsday, USA Today, the Chicago Sun-Times (And yet another!), the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Ill., the Rochester, N.Y., Democrat & Chronicle, the Seattle Times, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Miami Herald, the Portland Oregonian, the Durham, N.C., Herald-Sun, the Chapel Hill, N.C., News, the Missoula, Mont., Missoulian, the Times-Record of Denton, Md., the News-Herald of Willoughby, Ohio, the Amarillo (Texas) Globe News, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Waynesboro News Virginian, the Virginian-Pilot, the Des Moines Register, the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Gannett’s N.Y. Central Media hub, the Daily Herald of Provo, Utah, the Carbondale, Ill., Southern Illinoisian and the Canarsie Courier of New York City. And the Associated Press. And Mann’s Jeweler’s Accent magazine. And Investment News magazine. And Time magazine.
