The Internet is full of filth. From "barely legal babes" to barely avoidable male-enhancement spam, something risqué seems to be lurking around every corner online.
Yet in an age where amateur action may be more accessible than early American literature, some families are finding that Internet service providers have drawn the line on obscenity at a rather surprising place: Their own names, they're being told by Web professionals, are too vulgar for the Web.
What's in a name?
Before you think I've gone off the deep end, allow me to introduce you to an unassuming little town in North Lincolnshire, England. About a hour's drive northeast of Sheffield, it's a place known as the steel-producing capital of the United Kingdom -- but that distinction pales in comparison to where its real claim to fame lies: in its name. Welcome to Scunthorpe.
The name Scunthorpe -- whose unassuming syllables are pronounced as "scun" and "thorpe" -- is believed to be derived from an Old Norse word, "escumetorp," meaning "farmstead belonging to Skuma." But the name's etymology isn't what made it notorious.
All of those episodes of misplaced nannydom led to the christening of a new term, the "
Scunthorpe Problem," referring to the blocking of an otherwise unobjectionable name because an unintended naughty word resides within its borders. It's something that residents of the South Yorkshire town of
Penistone, which is about an hour west of Scunthorpe, know well, as do families living in England's less blatantly blasphemous village of
Lightwater (look carefully), which is about three hours south of Scunthorpe.
So what's in a name? A lot, it would seem, especially in the automated matrix of the Information Age. But the Scunthorpe Problem isn't limited to geographic locations. Get ready to meet a retired radiologist who unexpectedly found his life shifting from X-rays to accusations of being X-rated.
Virtual rejection
Dr. Herman I. Libshitz is used to people teasing him about his name. The doctor, raised in Philadelphia and now living in Chestertown, Md., learned early on he'd have to defend his family's honor.
"When you're named Libshitz, you expect problems with your name," he says. "Can you imagine what a drill sergeant did with Libshitz?"
Still, Libshitz's foray into cyberspace proved more irksome than the teasing he had endured in his younger years. It started around 1998, when he bought a computer and tried to sign up for an AOL account.
"AOL told me my name was insulting and offensive," he remembers. "They wouldn't give me an e-mail address."
Libshitz fought and won that battle. But it was only the beginning. Fast-forward to July 2008, when Libshitz decided to upgrade their home Internet service from dial-up to broadband. They logged on to Verizon's Web site only to find that, once again, the ISP wouldn't accept their name for use in an e-mail address.
"Verizon could use my name in the phone book. They could use my name to bill me. Lord knows they cash my checks with my name on it," Libshitz says. "But somehow, as an e-mail address, it wasn't good. That offended me. I told them it was fine when Uncle Sam wanted me to be in the military, and I proudly served."
Four phone calls and a rotating lineup of unseen supervisors proved inadequate to the task of solving the Libshitz issue. Finally, a reporter from the Philadelphia Inquirer managed to get through to someone at Verizon to discuss the doctor's
DSL purchase problems and ultimately to reverse the decision declaring his last name off-limits.
"They condescended to let me use my own name as an e-mail address. Wasn't that gracious?" Libshitz remarks.
