The grouchy, irascible Wall Street Journal--which last week railed so eloquently against lightbulbs, cursive, and the president's taste in music--is at it again this week. The newest target of the paper's scorn? The vulgar words jeans companies use to describe the human posterior. Ray Smith provides a guided tour through the muck, refusing to spell out a slightly racy three-letter word from the Levi's ad campaign:

In what could be called a race to the bottom, some denim companies are breaking language taboos, not backing away from using crude language to describe the backside.

A current slogan for Levi Strauss & Co.'s Levi Curve ID women's jeans reads "All A—es Were Not Created Equal." The slogan, which doesn't bleep out the three-letter word for the behind, appears in store windows, on billboards and as part of a flashy magazine campaign. VF Corp.'s Lee Jeans brand has a television commercial in which Mike Rowe, host of "Dirty Jobs" on the Discovery Channel, refers to his hindquarters as "butt." Gap Inc.'s Old Navy brand recently used the word "booty" in TV ads for a system to determine the best jeans for all sorts of behinds. The words "Booty Reader" show on the screen.

[H/t: Poynter]

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Ray Gustini