Homophones Are So Gay! Oh, And You’re Fired

Today in perhaps you should be enrolling in the school instead of running it: Language School Blogger Fired for Writing About Homophones

A social media specialist for a Utah language school that teaches English to non-native speakers says he was fired for writing a blog post about homophones—words that sound the same, but carry different meanings—because his boss was afraid readers would think it was about “gay sex.”

Tim Torkildson told the Salt Lake Tribune that shortly after his lesson went up, Nomen Global Language Center owner Clarke Woodger fired him, complaining “now our school is going to be associated with homosexuality.”

“I had to look up the word” Woodger said, according to the account Torkildson published on his personal blog, “because I didn’t know what the hell you were talking about. We don’t teach this kind of advanced stuff to our students, and it’s extremely inappropriate. Can you have your desk cleaned out by eleven this morning? I’ll have your check ready.”

And believe it or not, the boss confirmed that he really is this stupid.

“People at this level of English,” Woodger told the Tribune, “may see the ‘homo’ side and think it has something to do with gay sex.”

Credit for not rushing out a standard, see through denial, I suppose.

And just to add another layer of dumbassitude to a situation that should be crumbling under the weight of more than enough of it already, the report also points out that the school’s blog contains a post about homophones…written in 2011. Some fine quality control work, Lou.

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