Montreal Government Approves Disgusting Personalized License Plate for Man’s Dodge Charger
A crude but obscure medical word slipped its way past Canadian government censors.
A man in Montreal was approved for a personalized license plate that reads "SMEGMA." Resident Ryk Edelstein decided to push the limits of Montreal's equivalent of the U.S. Department of Motor Vehicles, its Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) on personal plates, and filed for the crude but obscure plate, certain that it wouldn't make it through company screening, reported Montreal Gazette. Well, it did. Now, it’s parked for everyone to see.
"My wife is none too pleased about this plate," he told Montreal Gazette. "She thought it was funny at first. Of course, then when she realized the car was going to be parked in front of the house, she wasn't terribly amused."
Edelstein applied for the plate for his Dodge Charger despite an SAAQ moratorium on license plates that convey "an obscene, scandalous or sexual idea.” The relative obscurity of this particular word somehow got past the agency’s filter—refer to Merriam-Webster's definition if you care to know what it is.
An SAAQ employee confirmed to The Drive that a vehicle in Montreal does indeed have a plate registered with the word.
Edelstein explained to Montreal Gazette that he discovered the word in a library with some friends, and that it stuck with him in the years since. Recently, friends told him their personalized plates for family names—such as "Roth"—had been denied, surprising Edelstein.
"I found it mind-boggling that innocent-sounding family or place names were being rejected. [...] Then it dawned on me this summer," explained Edelstein. "What would be the most absurd and most disgusting word I could try to register for a plate? I would have put 'furuncular myiasis,' but it was too many characters for a licence plate."
"And yet, they came back 24 hours later, and said congratulations. [...] So, now I have the plate. Great. It will at least drive passersby to their dictionaries—sorry—the internet for its definition."
Edelstein stated on social media that he is unsure how long he will be able to keep the offending plate—by the SAAQ or his wife.
