Oh I absolutely see how it happened. It’s rooted in that love of “Technically correct.” I can absolutely see one of them saying “All I did was have a picture of a scrabble tile with the letter G on it. Is having a single scrabble tile illegal? You can’t simply keep us from associating with each other, the first amendment protects the right to peaceably assemble!” All the while they know very obviously what they did, it’s just that they thought they could technically get away with it. They figured that if no one of them openly used the whole word, they couldn’t possibly face any consequences.