沙特阿拉伯一直严禁使用带有冒犯意思的车牌字母组合，“SEX“、 “ASS¹”，以及与其宗教教义严重背离的酒类消费场所“BAR“均在禁用之列，而“USA”这个字母组合竟然位居禁用列表首位。沙特推出这一政策是因为有些车主在选择个性化车牌时，特意选择像“BAD“、“NUT”等有冒犯意思的字母组合。据称，负责个性化车牌管理的有关部门已经公布了九个禁用的字母组合，要求所有分支机构不再派发包含这些组合的车牌，之前已经派发的则要求更换。

Saudi Arabia has banned auto² licence tags whose Arabic characters spell out offensive words when romanised, with the list of banned combinations including "USA".

Saudi Arabia has banned auto licence tags whose Arabic characters spell out offensive words when romanised, with the list of banned combinations including "USA", Al-Watan newspaper reported Sunday.

Saudi plates normally have three Arabic characters and three numbers, but the growing fashion is for auto owners also to display a version using the Latin alphabet and some buyers of personalised "vanity plates" deliberately³ choose Arabic letters which turn into words like "SEX", "ASS" and "NUT".

The authorities in charge of issuing vanity plates have released a list of nine prohibited three-letter combinations, and ordered all branches to stop renewing plates that include them, according to Watan.

On the list are combinations like "BUT," "BAD" and "BAR" -- the latter presumably a problem because it suggests alcohol, which is strictly⁴ prohibited in the conservative Islamic kingdom.

But first on the list, for unexplained reasons, is the combination "USA".

Some 90,000 plates with the prohibited letter combinations are being replaced, Watan said.

Vanity plates are fashionable with wealthy and young Saudis, and auctions⁵ of special combinations have brought in as much a six million riyals (1.6 million dollars) for one plate, the newspaper reported.

Vocabulary:

vanity plates: 个性化车牌