US news site calls Leicester rugby player a ‘prostitute’ in mistranslation of ‘hooker’

Americans and Brits ostensibly speak the same language, but some words still manage to slip through the net.

Unfortunately, for one US news site, their mistranslation of a well known sporting term over the pond didn’t go unnoticed.

Insider Voice was covering a story about Leicester Tigers player Tom Youngs, when they made the eye-catching blunder.

Rather than refer to the England international’s official rugby union position of “hooker”, they felt the need to find a synonym for the noun.

Therefore, the headline on their article read: “Tom Youngs: Leicester Tigers prostitute charged by RFU after Bristol incident”.

For those readers less familiar with the sport, the hooker is one of the forwards in a team, playing in the front row during a scrum.

The name derives from their role of “hooking” the ball back with the foot. It has nothing to do with sex work.

Yet, incredibly, it’s not the first time Insider Voice has been tripped up by the title.

Almost two weeks before the “prostitute” mishap, they announced that Bath’s Ross Batty was retiring from the game by branding him a “whore”.

Even more amazingly, neither headline has been corrected, even though the Batty piece was published on June 1 and the Youngs story went out on Friday.

Still, the mishaps have given plenty of Twitter users a laugh:

All we can say is, check your dictionary – as well as your thesaurus – next time you hit go on a headline.