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A study intended to find a more terrible name for the rowing position than “coxswain” could find no such worse word.
The report, commissioned by the International Rowing Federation, concluded that “coxswain” is absolutely the worst thing that the rowing community could call the member of the crew who sits in the stern of the boat and tells rowers when to stroke.
“It can either be pronounced ‘cock’s in’ or shortened to ‘cox,’ both of which are terrible,” said IRF President Jean Pierre van Claude.
“Yes, the irony is not lost on us, the cox tells people when to stroke,” he added. “We. Get. It. We fucking get it. You asshats in the American Kayak Association can stop emailing us.”
“We were surprised when we saw the results of the study,” said researcher David Buxton. “We thought that, for example, ‘dickbarker’ might be a worse name. But, as the study showed, our initial estimates were wrong. ‘Coxswain’ was worse than pretty much every other possible arrangement of Latin alphabet letters possible.”
Other possibilities that the researchers had set their sights on included “shitsayer," “fucklejohn" and “penis."
