We doubt anyone would be brave enough to call Tom Youngs a prostitute to his face
(Picture: Getty Images)Americans and Brits ostensibly speak the same language, but some words still manage to slip through the net.
Unfortunately, for one US news site, their mistranslation of a well known sporting term over the pond didn’t go unnoticed.
Insider Voice was covering a story about Leicester Tigers player Tom Youngs, when they made the eye-catching blunder.
Rather than refer to the England international’s official rugby union position of “hooker”, they felt the need to find a synonym for the noun.
Therefore, the headline on their article read: “Tom Youngs: Leicester Tigers prostitute charged by RFU after Bristol incident”.
Dear American news website, the rugby union term you are looking for here is “hooker”. You’re welcome. https://t.co/9kD8KUirKn pic.twitter.com/gpZqryN4Kl
— Angry People in Local Newspapers (@angrypiln) June 16, 2021
For those readers less familiar with the sport, the hooker is one of the forwards in a team, playing in the front row during a scrum.
The name derives from their role of “hooking” the ball back with the foot. It has nothing to do with sex work.
Yet, incredibly, it’s not the first time Insider Voice has been tripped up by the title.
Almost two weeks before the “prostitute” mishap, they announced that Bath’s Ross Batty was retiring from the game by branding him a “whore”.
@Rossbatty2 👀👀👀😂😂
— Tom Ellis (@tomellis45) June 14, 2021
https://t.co/Z7KDLx7y84
Even more amazingly, neither headline has been corrected, even though the Batty piece was published on June 1 and the Youngs story went out on Friday.
Still, the mishaps have given plenty of Twitter users a laugh:
Wishing Tom Youngs well in his new career... pic.twitter.com/XHZHkOq1xj
— David (@shrekwasp) June 14, 2021
Yes, spellcheckers, grammar checkers, and autosuggest are all great tools, but they still need a human eye.
— Grammar Monster (@grammarmonster) June 12, 2021
For Americans: Tom Youngs plays hooker for Leicester Tigers. pic.twitter.com/kbY94tziwh
The whole article has a bunch of ‘corrections’ for American English, including one case where they accidentally change his name from Youngs to ‘the youth’ https://t.co/5RQdSrH6Tb
— Matteo (@matteoOJ) June 16, 2021
When your website copies and pastes and gets the thesaurus out…https://t.co/YGEcjGuZgW #rugby
— Niall Moore (@elniallo) June 14, 2021
All we can say is, check your dictionary – as well as your thesaurus – next time you hit go on a headline.
