Not that there's anything wrong with that ...

The Times-Picayune of New Orleans reports that NFL.com won't let anyone order a particular football jersey -- a New England Patriots jersey with the last name of cornerback Randall Gay embroidered on it.

The report says an LSU professor attempted to order the jersey but the sale was denied when she typed in "Gay" as the name to be embroidered. The reason for the web site's computerized rejection? "This field should not contain a naughty word" the web site warns.

According to the article by The T-P (what an appropriate name for a newspaper, eh? T-P and picayune), the NFL is now aware of the problem, intends to fix it, and the shirts will be available soon letting thousands of football fans in New England and elsewhere express their open admiration for a football player named "Gay." (You just know that poor sonovabitch probably started lifting weights just to handle the abuse in high school and elementary school. But it could have been worse.)

NFL.com will soon realize what a can of worms it has opened by wanting to ban certain words it deems "naughty." True capitalists will sell you anything regardless of what it says, means, does, etc.

But it's nice to see The T-P gets involved in helping to solve the urgent problems of at least one of its readers.

No information on whether there's a football scholarship being offered by The Neverland Ranch for anyone with professional talent willing to change their name to "Peter Pedophilia," the jersey for whom which, incidentally, can be ordered:

First read my comments ... then you can start playing with the shopping site at NFL.com. Let's get your priorities straight! Besides, I can save you some experimentation time. As you might have guessed, I've been having "Fun with the First Amendment" on the NFLShop.com site.

For awhile during my experimentation it appeared as if the NFL used the George Carlin core selection of "naughty" words for its base list of banned words, but you can print up a shirt with TWAT, which is a Carlinistic no-no. On the other hand, MOTHERFUCKER won't fit because there are too many letters, but MOTHERFUCK will. However, yep, you guessed, it's banned. Nor will it accept FUCK but it will take FUCKAREWE, which is allegedly -- at least according to my friend Byron -- the name of an ancient lost tribe.

As the NFL spokesman said, you can now order a shirt with GAY. You can even get one with FAG if that's your wish or the English preference, POOF. But you can't order one with QUEER, HOMO, LESBIAN or even LESBO. LEZ is not okay but LES, LEZZIE and its spelling alternative LEZZY are. HOMOPHOBE is definitely okay -- just nine letters. DYKE? No problem whatsoever, but BULL DYKE is a definite no-no. DILDOE is, DILDO is not.

HETERO is very okay. So is STRAIGHT, STUD and STICKMAN. In fact, LADY is all right, as is TART. Not so for TRAMP, WHORE, SLUT, SKANK or PROSTITUTE. COOZ and its spelling alternative COOZE? If you want 'em on a shirt, they're yours!

The NFL people apparently have changed the "naughty word" language to something they deem more professional sounding when they reject your sophomoric request: The personalization entered cannot be accepted. Which means that warning will pop up if you try to order an NFL jersey as a birthday present for your friend DICKHEAD but not for your friend PENISBRAIN. My old friend BONER Jones -- a neighborhood pal who also went Navy -- would not be able to get a shirt with his nickname on it but he never liked that moniker anyway.

HOOTERS is not acceptable but HOOTER is. (Hooters the restaurant has annual fundraisers for the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research but their spokeswoman told me they do not directly contribute specifically to fight breast cancer, so this -- while politically incorrect -- is appropriate.) YABOS is cool, as is TA-TAS and my old friend Bukevetski's favorite term: GOZANGAS. TITS? No way Jose.

You can't get a shirt embroidered with SHIT but you can get one with DOG SHIT on it. DOG'S BOLLOCKS would have way too many letters. Don't try to get a shirt with CUNT printed on it; they won't let you. However, you can get one with CUNT HAIR. I tried to see if I could order a shirt with RED CUNT HAIR, the smallest unit of measurement used in the military ("Nothing's finer than a red cunt hair McBride!" the Navy chiefs told me.), but I couldn't. Again, too many letters. However, where there's a will, there's a way and RCH and even R CUNTHAIR was okay.

So you see. No problems at all. Just stay within the bounds -- 10 letters maxium -- and your freedom of self-expression will not be impinged by the NFL. So what's all the fuss about anyway?

[Now if you don't mind, I've got to run. My aunts and my ex-sister-in-law are going to have apoplexy when they read this latest entry and I've got to warn them again that The 6th Estate is not a blog for normal news and NEWS4A2 is not your standard blood-sucking journalist. I've been kicked off way too many BBSes and comment areas to shut up now. More on that later.]

3/4/2005 -- UPDATE -- I realize this is going to appear like a mutual admiration news society but today's issue of The Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal "Best of the Web Today" contained another nod to The 6th Estate's humble editor for passing them the tip on this story. So, again, another nod of the press pass-festooned fedora to mild-mannered James Taranto and his trusty sidekick Compiler Girl aka Carol Muller for the recognition! I would be remiss for not mentioning the Baton Rouge Business Report's Daily Report and its editor Mukul Verma for the initial head's-up about The T-P article, which I then passed along to TWSJOJBotWT, thereby snagging the credit and fame (But no t-shirt nor coffee mug; no swag to be had.). "Oh what a tangled web is weaved, when we must seek weird news for free ..." Oh, btw, Pssssst! Mukul in Hindi means "Rosebud." You talk about abuse in school because of your name? Just wait until his readers find out about this!)