Post Office-Olympics Tiff Leads to ‘O-Word’

WASHINGTON — A quarrel between the 1996 Olympics and the Postal Service has added a new term to the post office dictionary: the “O-word.”

Games organizers are threatening to sue the post office over use of Olympic stamps on T-shirts. They even boycotted first-day ceremonies for the stamps honoring their event.

Tired of hearing about the squabble, some postal officials have begun referring to the Olympics as the “O-word.”

These are the same folks who for years have used the term “J-word” to avoid calling anything junk mail.