Re: Tournament Naming

• From: lampdwellr <no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com>
• Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 19:02:52 -0000
• Message-ID: <bcvlos+aime_at_...>

At the risk of incurring the wrath of many people who think 
themselves desperately more mature than I because they are Too Grown 
Up to be offended by a slightly racy tournament name, I'll weigh in 
here.

Those who know me well enough should know my sense of humor to be 
fairly irreverent, and my mouth to spew forth its own share and more 
of "offensive" words.

It seems to me a fairly pointless and altogether unclever endeavor to 
name one's tournament in "honor" of a derivative euphemism for a male 
or female sex organ.  I'm not offended, but there are folks who are 
(and have every right to be) within the quiz bowl community.  Maybe 
their religious beliefs dictate a certain lack of cursing.  Maybe 
they remain under the impression that American society still has 
standards of decency which should leave those kinds of words out of 
public conversation and in R-rated films.  

Regardless, the genius of the quiz bowl community is (or at least 
should be) in its openness to all manner of people, with all manner 
of beliefs.  The quiz bowl community is   Quiz bowl tournaments not 
only open themselves to all manner of competitors; they cater to 
them.  Naming your tournament a "curse word" (or whatever the heck 
word I should use so as not to sound like a member of the religious 
right) is not funny, nor is it particularly appropriate for any 
situation.  Besides that, it does indeed tick some people off.

Grow up,
Steve Bahnaman, proud future host of the Emory Academic Team's Spring 
High-school Invitational Tournament