WTF... abbreviation on car plates makes Americans blush

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — OMG! What is that on my car's license plate?

That's the question asked by 10,000 drivers who registered their vehicles in North Carolina last year and got registrations starting with "WTF."

Long just an innocuous combination of three letters, like OMG ("Oh my God!") WTF is now heavy with vulgar connotations: it is an oft-used email and mobile phone abbreviation that means "What the f***."

In North Carolina, WTF plates were issued to some 9,999 drivers last year, including elementary school teacher Mary Ann Hardee, who teaches computing and technology, the News and Observer newspaper reported earlier this month.

"She wasn't hip to the Internet-age significance of her new license plate -- until she caught her teenage grandchildren...