San Francisco - California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger first made his name as a Hollywood action superstar with his blunt verbal style.

But his latest barrage triggered a new scandal Thursday after a letter he sent to a legislator was revealed to contain a subtle code that told the pesky lawmaker: F? You.

The incriminating code was revealed by a local paper, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, which published a copy of an official Schwarzenegger letter to a bill from Assemblyman Tom Ammiano. In the veto message, the first letter of each line spelt out the crude curse.

Schwarzenegger's office maintained that the incident was merely a "strange coincidence," but the report pointed out that in a recent altercation, Ammiano, a homosexual Democrat, had told the Republican governor to "kiss my gay ass."

Ammiano said he had no hard feeling about the way the veto was expressed.

"I think it was a very creative way of exercising veto power," Ammiano, a former San Francisco stand-up comic, told reporters.

Ammiano's side sought a truce in the war of words. "We will call it even and start with a clean slate with the governor from here on out," his spokesman said. (dpa)