Don’t Read This Sentence Out Loud

Or we'll wash your mouth out with soap and send you to the time-out room.

Yes, this is an AI-generated image. For which I apologize. But you get the drift.

Being of sound mental health, proud of my cultural heritage and advocating a sense of belonging, I’m inviting a diverse group of key people — Blacks, females, women, pregnant people, Native Americans, prostitutes, commercial sex workers, activists, feminists, LGBTQs, the indigenous community, people who breastfeed, climate scientists, people with disabilities, underprivileged people and, yes, regular ol’ straight men — to get on my accessible boat, which is powered by clean energy, so we can all go fishing in the Gulf of Mexico.

I composed that extremely rambling sentence using words that, according to a recent article in The New York Times, are being banned by various federal agencies.

OK, maybe “banned” is too strong a word. Because there have been no official, binding orders from agency heads to outlaw these words. Instead, Times reporters discovered, these words are being subtly and systematically erased from the websites and official documents of agencies that include the State Department, Federal Aviation Administration and National Park Service.

Here’s the full list, keeping in mind it is still being added to:

I gotta say, some of those words and acronyms, I don’t know what they mean. And others, I would never have occasion to use in a sentence.

Still, you might ask: Is this censorship?

To which I would answer: No, absolutely not.

This is probably just part of that whole DOGE thing to make our government more efficient. Because, you know, saying these words costs a whole lot of money.

And you might further ask: Are you troubled by this?

And I would answer: Nope, not at all. Because the folks doing this are just showing their asses. It’s not nice. And it will come back on them.

Which brings us to Today’s Challenge. Make your own sentence using some of the words above. Send them to me. And maybe we’ll add them to the Bob’s Diner menu.