Rhino You Are, But What Am I?

Alrighty then...

The MTA has a new plan to add a little polish to its police force: hiring a "verbal judo" teacher who calls himself "Rhino," refers to cops as "dawgs" and wants officers to walk around saying "Woosha!"

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority inked a $40,500 contract with George Thompson's upstate Verbal Judo Institute to instruct officers on the "martial arts of the mind and the mouth."

The goal is to help cops use language to get cooperation from drunks, dueling spouses and crazed civilians in a bid to stop confrontations from turning violent.

"It's all about how to operate in the special forces of words, how to be elite," Thompson said. "...We are the last thin blue line between order and disorder, peace and violence."

(snip)

He developed "maxims" for his "dawgs," his lingo for cops who take a bite out of crime.

Some are innocuous - such as, "If it makes you feel good, it's no good," a reminder that hurling insults may feel good in the moment but will cause problems.

Others are a bit unorthodox. Take the one that casts lawyers as the enemy: "He's that three-piece, shark-skinned, tassel-shoed, alligator-belted, four-eyed, Gray Poupon sucking S.O.B."

(snip)

"It's a very effective communications tool," said James O'Keefe, a former director of the NYPD Police Academy, now a criminal justice professor at St. John's University.

In other words, a "Woosha!"

That's what cops are taught to exclaim after sweet-talking a vexing or volatile civilian.

It's a toned-down version of a martial arts scream that involves the "natural expulsion of breath ... and represents a win," said Mike Manley, an ex-cop and Thompson protégé who will be teaching the MTA officers.

Not really sure what to make of this, other than that "Rhino" appears to have attended the Rudy Ray Moore School Of Bizarre Insults...