Back in the 1980s, American academics realized that English is as hopelessly masculine as mudflaps on a pitbull. So they wrote books like 1988's The Nonsexist Word Finder, a thesarus-like guide to writing gender-neutral sentences in a highly gendered language. This week's Studies in Crap post over on our Style Council blog has many of the ridiculous results.

Why "say uncle" when you can "cry barley," "draw in one's horns," or "throw in the sponge?" Other practical suggestions from The Nonsexist Wordfinder can help when ordering soft-serve:

"Jimmies: The origins of this term are unclear, but because it sounds sexist you might prefer an alternative: candy sprinkles."

And when you go on a bender:

"Spend money like a drunken sailor: This phrase is to be avoided because of its masculine overtones and because it unnecessarily vilifies today's sailors who do not fit the old stereotype."

There's whole heaps more where that came from, over at this week's Studies in Crap!

Yes, a former famous kid dreamed up the spectacular bosoms of this golden nude, which is one of eleven amazing and/or unfortunate Los Angeles thrift-store and junk-shop paintings compiled for this week's Studies in Crap on our Style Council blog.

Click on through and you'll not only find out whodunit . . . you'll also be treated to glories like this, discovered at Burbank's What's New Boutique!


All this and more awaits you at this week's Studies in Crap!

[Headline edited to change start to the much more sensible star, as proposed by alert commenter Thomasi.]

So, among the many glittering insanities piled up in the Bible Tabernacle Thrift Store on Lincoln Boulevard, your Crap Archivist discovered this daft 1950 preacher's tract, wherein evangelist W.V. Grant drops crazy like horses drop parade scat. Click on over to Studies in Crap on our Style Council blog to make sense of mad Grant quotes like:

"You can easily see what planet they are from. It is from the planet below instated of above. It is from the pits of hell! Or it could be from Satan's headquarters, which is somewhere in the air at present."

And:

"One-half of the people of earth will die by starvation, by sword and by hunger. But the other half will be left here to be destroyed by the two-edged sword that comes out of the mouth of Jesus. Human blood will run up to the horses' bits for over 200 miles."

Also, there's photos of a heap of other bizarre finds from Bible Tabernacle Thrift Store. Think of this week's Studies in Crap post as a visit to this strangest of shops, just without the claustrophobia, the mildewy smell, or the possibility of being avalanched beneath a mountain of linens the color of dogteeth!

If Jesus comes back soon, I hope to hell it's not my job to explain to Him why the "Christian" versions of things are usually the shittiest. What would He make of the damnable culture built in his name -- the pop music, legislators, and fantasy-film franchises?

Or this, from The Christian Mother Goose, this week's Study in Crap on our Style Council blog:

"Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet
Thanking Jesus for curds and whey"

Or:

"Little Jack Horner
Sat in a corner
Reading his Bible each day."

Click on through to Studies in Crap for much, much more, including scans, rhymes, and some Hulk Hogan craziness from a Koreatown thrift store!

So, like Zardoz in reverse, fully-dressed Sean Connery spent the '70s going commando. Meanwhile, Sammy Davis, Jr., collected pornography, and Diane Keaton admitted an oral fixation! Click on through to our Style Council blog to learn all of this and more in this week's Studies in Crap post. Today's find: a 1977 issue of Rona Barrett's Gossip Super Special studded with inconsequential wonders like:

Sylvester Stallone: "I tried my father's hairdressing trade but went absolutely nutso during pincurl lessons."

And:

"Just in case you've ever wondered what Hugh Hefner does when he wants to really let go and have a grand old time, I'll tell you - he goes bowling!"

You see, long before the advent of TMZ Access Hollywood we could get months out of the most meager of famous-person bullshit. A copy of Rona Barrett's Gossip Super Special could last an organized family a full season. But you, lucky reader of the online age, have the chance to feast on it all in one blog-post burst!

Click on through to Studies in Crap for a season's worth of trash!

Holy hell, times have changed. Unlike in Texas today, just 44 years ago, publishers were rushing to put African-Americans into textbooks.

As you can see in this week's Studies in Crap post over on our Style Council blog, the early results, however well intentioned, were often hilariously strained. Author Margaret B. Young's refusal to ever offend any white folks ever means she often resorts to amazing understatement.

A taste of the fascinating/alarming quotes selected by your Crap Archivist:

"After the Civil War, the Negro's experiences as a sharecropper in the South were not very rewarding."

And:

"The American negro that you know best is the person whom you see, hear, or read about today. He might be Ralph Bunche or Willie Mays. He might be the man who collects your garbage or brings your mail. He might be your janitor or your teacher. He might be your friend - or he might be you."

Wait, he might be you? Only way to find out for sure is to click on through to Studies in Crap!

Long ago, before three assbreaks a day became the birthright of anyone with a computer in the house, Americans had to learn about sex the hard way: through ridiculous books like The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Sex, now scanned for your examination at Studies in Crap on our Style Council blog.

Of course, it used to be illegal to send anything the least bit sexy through the mail, so marital manuals could only depict the bits beneath our skin, which means most illustrations look like Lovecraftian nightmares from deep outer space.

But at least the words were helpful, right?

"During the phase when man was half animal, copulation was carried out from behind, as animals still do today, and the clitoris then still played an important part." (page 280).

Either way, there is much, much more of this madness over at this week's Studies in Crap!

This week, your Weekly's all about the best L.A. has to offer, then and now. In that spirit, your Crap Archivist is proud to present America's Best Pick Up Spots, a gem of horny misogyny guaranteed not to get you laid in this or any other decade!

Click on over to Studies in Crap on our Style Council blog for hard truths like this:

"The truth of the matter is that you're lonely now. And you're horny now. Your left hand is always available as a mistress, but it's hardly good company."

There's also much dumbass advice to savor, including how to trick the secretaries lunch in Pershing Square into thinking you're a millionaire financier:

"If you are developing a paunch, pat it as you approach someone, clear your throat in a dignified way, and start talking about the dangers of 'all that fancy eating.' Let her jump to her own conclusions."

Visit Studies in Crap for these cads' thoughts on LACMA, MacArthur Park, and why the Whiskey A Go-Go is on it's way out!

Come to find out Hirohito was pure panty-peeler!

In his horrifying 1943 tract The Truth About Juvenile Delinquency, fear-profiteering preacher Dan Gilbert out-crazied even today's professional crazies by calling teenage promiscuity the result of a Japanese plot.

He says:

"Eighty per cent of the venereal infections among servicemen are derived from high school girls. Juvenile delinquents are putting more soldiers in the hospital than the Germans and Japs combined." (page 1)

"The advocates of free love are the worst of traitors, the Japs' best friends and co-workers in America. They should be treated accordingly. They should be interned with other enemies of our country." (page 29)

There's much more in this week's Studies in Crap post on our Style Council blog. We invite you not just to giggle at the batshit beliefs of our American past . . . but also to gather a little ammunition, perhaps, against the batshit beliefs of our American now. Take a peek!

Good news! You know love, that surge of feeling most of us feel once in a while that somehow is still so complicated that poor Foreigner doesn't even know what it is? This week's Studies in Crap post presents Spread Some Love, the world's most helpful book on the subject! It's full of thoughts like these:

"Abraham Lincoln who failed over and over again had this to say: 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself.'"

And:

"We live in a society where women complain that a good man is hard to find. And men choose to stay single or form homogenous relationships."

Just click on through to Studies in Crap on our Style Council blog and you'll meet author John A. Andrews, learn why women talk so much, thrill to a Spread Some Love promotional video that has a surprising amount of axe fetishization, and discover what Kenny Rogers, Vince Lombardi and Saw producer Mark Burg have to teach us about the fine art of love-spreading.

As Los Angelenos know, it's the white Americans who live furthest from Muslims who fret away their days worrying that all Muslims have a plot to destroy them. This belief presupposes that Muslims are aware of these Americans, or that Muslims would give shit if they were aware of them, and many other hilarious things.

Ever wondered how these Americans came to these beliefs? There's clues in this week's Studies in Crap post! The 1966 kids' textbook Let's Visit the Middle East includes marvels like:

"A dictionary tells us that an Arab is 'a Semite of the race which from earliest known times has lived in the Arabian peninsula.' It is interesting that the Jews are Semites, too, and yet the Arabs generally hate them." (pages 25 - 26).

And:

"Given time and help to solve their many problems, the nations of the Middle East may once again contribute much to civilization." (page 94).

So take a pilgrimage to Studies in Crap on our Style Council blog! It's cheaper than hajj!

Scooch your fine selves over to our Style Council blog for Studies in Crap, your weekly peek at the weirdest and most bewildering crap from L.A.'s thrift shops, estate sales, and used book stores. This week: 1970's paperback star-sign perversity Astro-Sexology!

Brace yourself for insights like these:

Of all the signs of the Zodiac, Taurus is the one most prone to high incidence of frigidity in women and impotence in men.

Because of their sensitivity in the knees, it would be a good idea for Capricorn people to employ them during intimate relations by pressing them firmly against the bodies of their sex partners just prior to orgasm.