EDITORIAL – Super secret Super Bowl decoder

You may not have noticed, but parts of this Pitt News are in secret code. Have you figured it… You may not have noticed, but parts of this Pitt News are in secret code. Have you figured it out yet? Here’s a hint: It involves the Super Bowl and certain local advertisements.

Yep, that’s right. Because of a few (arguably silly) trademark rules, local advertisers aren’t allowed to include certain words, phrases, names and logos in their ads. (This nearly thwarted our business staff’s attempts to offer special Super Bowl-edition promotions.) The taboo words include – among other things – “Super Bowl,” “NFL” and “Steelers.”

The weird thing about it is that, because the rules don’t apply to editorial content, we can still write whatever we want.

We could even, if we felt like it, put a box above every ad in the paper that said something like “Go Steelers NFL Super Bowl Steelers Steelers Seahawks Super Sunday -” Never mind that it might be gibberish. There’s nothing stopping us from using those terms, and there’s nothing stopping advertisers from using euphemisms like “big game between two professional football teams from Seattle and Pittsburgh occurring Sunday evening.”

But adding Super Bowl references above all the ads would take up a lot of space, and that’s probably not as fun for you as using our special decoder. And no, it’s not a ring. Sorry.

So, in case you haven’t cracked the special code, we’ve outlined it all here for you. Yes, we know it’s not hard to “decode” the messages. But if they’re going to be silly about it, why can’t we?

A certain city name beginning with the letter ‘S’ that appears in an ad on page 6 = the Seattle Seahawks.

That pair of colors – one dark and one shiny – mentioned in ads on pages 6, 9, 11, 12, 22 and 24 = the Pittsburgh Steelers.

That especially large sporting match alluded to in ads on pages 9, 10, 12, 14 and 24 = the World Cup. Oh, no wait, it’s the Super Bowl.

The lucky number in an ad on page 12 = Ben Roethlisberger.

The oversized weekend mentioned in an ad on page 11 = this weekend, aka Super Bowl weekend.

That word on page 23 that’s spelled something like “S-T-[little football player graphic]- [little football player graphic]-L-[little football player graphic]-R-S” = the Pittsburgh Steelers.

So there you have it. Enjoy the issue and your weekend. And please, celebrate responsibly. Go Steelers! (Or Seahawks, if that’s your thing. Traitor. )