Today’s English Cafe #114 talks about vanity plates, specialized license plates that you can put on your car. One of the interesting things about these plates is that they often try to spell a word using the fewest letters possible, since there is not much room on a license plate. Here are some examples and what they mean:
Above you see “PIGPN” – this means “pigpen.” A pigpen is the place where you keep pigs, and is supposed to be very dirty. If your mother tells you your room is a “pigpen,” she wants you to clean it up!
This one says “WHOLUVSU” – this means “who loves you.” We sometimes write love “luv” and of course “u” is used for “you,” since they have the same sound.
This plate used a symbol of the heart to communicate the idea of love. It probably means “pure lover.” The adjective pure sometimes means sole or exclusively, the only thing you are.
Have you seen any good vanity plates? Let us know!
~Jeff
P.S. Some of you may have noticed that today’s city, Boston, was also talked about in English Cafe #45. I tried to talk about different things, however, so I hope you will learn even more about this great city.
P.P.S. UPDATE – I want to thank two listeners who posted comments to say that “PURR” lover is probably someone who likes cats. To purr means to make a noise like a cat. The actual noise is usually “meow.” Since I don’t have any cats, I didn’t think of that possibility!
That plates are very funny.
Inside the ESL Podcast Google Group (Vocabulary to English Café 114)
We put a link for the top 100 rated vanity license plates. There´s a lot of funny plate.
Best wishes.
Ed.
First time I have seen such funny plates, but I do not know if I like it or dislike them at all. But some time what is new or we are not acustomed to use or to see it is difficult of assume.
At first sight it looks to me as “cutre”, this is a spanish word that is used nearly for everything that is not fine. But all depends of everyone taste.
really some thing specal for improving english
imagine
you can also interpret the third plate as “purr lover” – as in someone who loves how cats purr – (which would basically signify that the person loves cats 🙂
The PURR plate could also mean Purr lover, which would mean they love cats and cats purr when they are happy.
In France we don’t have these funny licence plate,only three or four numbers,then two capital letters,and finnaly the department number;on some plates we have also the symbol of the european country;so that’s all I have to say about licence plates here in France
I would like to recommand a good irish author for Jeff: Colum McCann ,I just read one of his books :The night’s seasons