“Vulgar slang” Image by Screenshot

Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news is that there is a trendy young sports writer named Alex Reimer who apparently rocketed to sports-journalism fame as a tiny child, and he’s Jewish!

The bad news is that he has been suspended for calling a five-year-old child an “annoying little pissant.”

Five-time Superbowl champ Tom Brady calls in weekly for a segment on sports radio show WEEI. Last Thursday, in a segment that did not feature Brady,a WEEI host named Alex Reimer (remember? from earlier in the article?) started talking about Brady’s five-year-old daughter Vivian. Reimer took issue with the very young Brady’s behavior in a scene in Brady’s Facebook series, “Tom Vs. Time.”

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Describing his feelings about the new show, Reimer painted a picture of its first scene, which he found staged. “Brady’s in the kitchen. His kid’s being an annoying little pissant,” Reimer said, spitting the words with a surprising amount of venom for an adult man talking about a young child whom he has never met.

Pissant means more or less what it sounds like. Here’s the Merriam-Webster definition:

That feeling when you verbally abuse a 5-year-old, but you do it “generally” Image by Screenshot (Merriam Webster)

And don’t miss this bit of information:

Descriptive! Image by Screenshot

For reference, here’s a clip of the li’l pissant in question, being scared by her dad:

On Monday morning, during his weekly segment with interview with WEII, Brady responded by saying, about as well as anyone ever could, “Well, I think that — I’ve tried to come on this show for many years and have showed you guys a lot of respect. I’ve always tried to come on and do a good job for you guys, so it’s very disappointing when you hear that, certainly.” Adding, with impressive reserve, “But my daughter or any child, they certainly don’t deserve that.”

After an apology from WEEI co-host Kirk Minihane, Brady said, “I’ll obviously evaluate whether I want to come on this show again, so I really don’t have much to say this morning. So,” he added, in his signature deflating style, “maybe I’ll speak with you guys some other time.”

Reimer has been suspended indefinitely by WEEI and has yet to make a statement.

Let this episode serve as a good reminder to us all: Don’t try to show off new vocabulary words live on national radio, especially when describing children.

Jenny Singer is a writer for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

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