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November 17, 2009

Letter: One school's 'meep' is another's 'doy'

To the editor:

I recently read Ethan Forman's story on www.fark.com about the use of the word "meep" at Danvers High School. As I was reading the story, I had to laugh out loud because of the memories it evoked.

I was a high-school student in a small town in northern Pennsylvania back in the 1950s. We, too, had a made-up word we used — it was "doy."

I don't know who started using it; it just appeared one day out of nowhere. It didn't have any particular meaning, and could be used to mean anything the user wanted.

At least the word "meep" came from somewhere, even if it was a muppet.

Our teachers and the principal were smart enough to not make an issue of it, and it soon died a natural death — in contrast to the principal in Danvers who is making a huge issue out of nothing.

The only thing that ever happened from anyone using the word "doy," as far as I know, happened to me one day when I was in typing class and we had some extra time near the end of class. The teacher told us to practice typing and said that we could type anything we wanted.

Well, I filled my page with the word and was very surprised when she told us to hand our papers in. The next class, she handed them back to us and included a handwritten note on mine telling me not to use profanity while practicing. This surprised me because I never thought of it as being profane.

Anyway, I just thought you'd like to hear about our made-up word and to let you know that these kids weren't the first ones to make up a word.

Bill Brown

Charleston, S.C.

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