Totally Not Fake News: What About BO’B? Or Is It B’OB? No, Wait, BOB?

Oxford, England – When it comes to answering questions about what constitutes the definitive word about a word, particularly in the English language, the authority resides with the folks behind the Oxford English Dictionary. For the better part of 170 years, the academics at Oxford have documented the history and evolution of words within the ever-growing English language. At present count, they have explained over 600,000 words. They include everything from historic English words to those generated from the newer realms of the internet and social media. They even account for abbreviations.

However, in all of its hallowed pages, you won’t find the answer to this question in Oxford’s volumes: “What is the proper way to abbreviate Bill O’Brien’s name in correspondence?” For over six years, Bill O’Brien has been the head coach of the NFL’s Houston Texans. For two before that, he was the head coach for the Penn State Nittany Lions. Consequently, he was and continues to be the subject of many an online message forum. In many of those forums, either due to attention span/intellect/forum requirements, people tend not to spell out the full name.

Thus, we are bombarded with multiple variants. Everything from “BO’B” to “BOB” to “BoB” to “B’OB” to “OB” to “oB” to “ob” to “boob” to “bob” to “BOOB” to “BO’OB” to “Boobs” to ….

[Apologies: The original copy editor for this story was violating corporate policy at Totally Not Fake News, apparently going with the classic excuse of looking for Bill O’Brien screwing over Houston videos on [CENSORED]. Said individual has now been terminated.]

This creates a great deal of confusion within the not-so-extensive world of specific team sports blog writing. Which is it? What should I go with? Is there anyone that can arbitrate this difficult and complex question? Extensive online searches, typing in all variants of “BOB”, “BO’B”, “BoB”, “Bo’B”, “BOOB”, “Boob”, “Big Bouncing Boobs...”

[Apologies: The new copy editor who sacked the original copy editor for violating Totally Not Fake News policy for online searches has now also been fired.]

Surprisingly, this is not that easy a question to answer. Few of the “establishment” sports writers go with that method. Apparently, years of college-level education, slaving away at the lowest level of newspapers or sports media organizations trying to perfect the use of the written word, does not make individuals like John McClain or Sarah Barshop inclined to use such writing shortcuts. Even noted professional Texans doomsayers, such as Jason La Canfora, who have no issue comparing Bill O’Brien to a clueless boob, do not have the inclination to abbreviate his name. Thus, if you are looking for help from the Mainstream Sports Media, you won’t get it. You will not see them use “BO’B” or “BoB” or “BO’OB” or “Boob” or “Bundles O’Boobs...”

[Apologies: The individuals who were responsible for the sacking of those responsible for the original sacking have themselves now been sacked.]

For clarity, we asked some of those in charge. All questions for this site were immediately forwarded to the programmers at Vox, who promised to get to work on it after they finished soliciting feedback from the tens of commentators on the SB Nation blogs. We haven’t yet heard back from the head office officially, but we did get a preview of what they will designate as the official abbreviation for Bill O’Brien:

No doubt that will clear everything up in this debate.

When posed to the folks at Oxford, the individual who answered our Zoom call, one Dr. Fred Neuberg Gee, had this to say on the matter:

“Seriously, who the hell are you? Did the chair of the department put you up to this? I get it, I am the new guy, I really do. Still, why do I have to deal with this [kitten]? Okay, I’ll play along. First off, your brand of American football is a [kittenized] version of the real game, although your team, the Texans, bears a striking resemblance to our English National Team, with all the talent and the creative way in which they fall short. Still, in doing some research, I find that the official name of the individual in question is one Mr. William James O’Brien, so in all honesty, you should just go with the officially sanctioned abbreviation of WJO’B…or, if you must insist, BJO’B, or heck, just go with B-JOB, or..”

[Apologies from behalf of both Oxford and Totally Not Fake News, but the copy editors that took over for the previous editors who oversaw the last sackings have now been sacked. We have also sacked Dr. F.N.Gee just to be on the safe side.]

In conclusion, it would appear that there are no final answers on this most pressing of questions. Perhaps it is fated to be in the eye of the beholder. Thus, I, as the writer of this article, proclaim that the official abbreviation for Bill O’Brien henceforth will be “BO’B”. Not “BOB”, nor “BoB”, nor “Bo’B” nor “BooB” nor “Big Boo..”

[Apologies: The copy editors responsible for the sackings of those who were responsible for the previous sackings of those who were previously in charge of the other sackings have themselves been sacked, along with everyone else involved in this article. To finish out this article, we had to go with a completely different company that will now simply provide footage of a bunch of NFL players acting like total and complete…(looks around nervously in all directions)…Boo [He too was just now sacked.]]