Every now and then, a vanity plate slips by state plate censors. Driving in Houston I saw a plate one morning that read "PAN-8." Something about it nagged at me, but no light went off. But then, later in the afternoon, it suddenly hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks: 8 in Spanish is "ocho" and this would make the plate read "Panocho"--which just so happens to be Chicano slang for a certain part of the female anatomy associated with felines...(Puerto Rican Spanish uses a totally different term); Woops!~ :-).
I started a collection project, gathering as many examples of vanity plates as possible (no matter what state they are from). My office colleagues (and some other friends) were quick to join in the fun (everyone got into the game and the list took off, and at last count we had 1005 plates)! Other folks have also had this idea (online sources) and even include photographs--but it is nearly impossible to catch every plate in a photo, so I opted NOT to do this. However, each plate is presented in a form that LOOKS a lot like a license plate--best I could do. The plates presented here are our contributions to the genre!!
I have listed them by distinct category in order to make things easier; however, every once in a while a particular plate could be classified in more than one possible category-—so don't be too surprised if a given plate happens to pop up more than once.
NOTE: The area where I live is near a large military facility, so a good number of the plates that we encounter have some connection with military personnel--and many are out-of-state vanity plates.
P.S. This project is a "work in progress," thus, not all category entries have yet been uploaded (the links are active, but some pages have not been created yet). I hope that you enjoy our plate collection!
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