One of the quiet pleasures of driving is seeing other drivers' vanity plates. They're limited only by seven letters and your imagination, and can reflect someone's personality, interests, hobbies, etc. But there are also words/phrases that you cannot put on vanity plates. You can probably assume the kinds of words the state doesn't allow on license plates...

But that didn't stop several people from submitting vanity plate requests that were ultimately rejected. Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias was on WGN Morning News in Chicago this week where he actually read some of the submissions that were ultimately rejected. His stone-cold stoicism when reading some of these is something to marvel.

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Giannoulias gave some insight into the vanity plate requests the state ultimately had to reject:

  • EATBUTT
  • BONER
  • WHOPASS
  • DZNUTZ
  • POOPSIE
  • IOWASUX

"Clever is too generous a word, although some did make me laugh," Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias said with remarkable deadpan conviction.

Despite adding over 300 submissions to the list of permanently banned words and letter combinations for Illinois plates, Giannoulias was admittedly a good sport about the creativity of Illinois motorists:

I appreciate the creativity and pride Illinoisans take in choosing their own customized license plates, but they must meet the standards of good taste and decency. We have to keep an eye out for anything tawdry, lewd or offensive, all of which are rejected and placed on our permanent rejection list. - Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, per WGN

A plate with a combination of letters and numbers will cost an Illinois driver $47, while a vanity plate with all letters costs an extra $94, on top of the price of the plate. As someone with an Illinois vanity plate, it will also add an $8 cost every time your registration sticker comes due. Just an FYI.

Read the full story about rejected vanity plate requests in Illinois on WGN's website.

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