Sometimes, we don't know whether to laugh or cry when we read these stories. The Port Authority of Allegheny County announced earlier this week that it would be taking down the vehicle wraps nine city buses in Pittsburgh. The reason? The slogans written on them: "Ziggin' Zaggin'." Someone had called in to complain what those seemingly harmless looked like in her rearview mirror, according to CBS affiliate KDKA. We're not going to spell it out for you.
Why we want to laugh: These buses had been decorated this way since 2003, and this is the first time anyone thought to mention it? Why we want to cry: Was there really no copy editor hired by the Port Authority or whoevever they hired to come up with these images? That is the actual job of a copy editor, to look at words and their every possible meaning, forwards and backwards, and make sure they are conveying the writer's intended meaning properly. Well, usually only forwards, but come on, everyone reads car and truck writing in their rearview mirror (one hopes).
To their credit, the Authority was pretty swift to respond. "In terms of the message being offensive it’s not a surprise at all. It’s a very serious and hurtful and offensive message. We felt the best thing to do was simply take it off,” Port Authority Spokesperson Jim Ritchie told KDKA.
Even if you think this is a ridiculous case of political correctness gone too far into the realm of snickering third-grade humor, you have to agree with Ritchie. It's best to end the argument and just take the dumb things off.
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