A Utah school dis­trict has decided against using “Cougars” as a mas­cot for a new high school in part because of the neg­a­tive con­no­ta­tion of the word in pop­u­lar cul­ture. Canyons School Dis­trict Super­in­ten­dent David S. Doty said the school needed to choose a mas­cot and 23% of stu­dents voted they wanted it to be the Cor­ner Canyon Cougars. Fal­cons, Rap­tors and Dia­mond­backs were the other choices on the bal­lot. But that didn’t sit well with par­ents who called in and com­plained that “Cougar” was a deroga­tory word because of how it’s made its way into our vocab­u­lary for older women who like to date younger men. At least three Utah schools, includ­ing Brigham Young Uni­ver­sity, use cougar as a mascot.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.