Double entendre

An 1814 engraving of a double entendre. He: "My sweet honey, I hope you are to be let with the Lodgins!" She: "No, sir, I am to be let alone."

A double entendre (French pronunciation: [dublɑ̃tɑ̃dʁə]) or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first (more obvious) meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué, inappropriate, or ironic.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a double entendre as especially being used to "convey an indelicate meaning". It is often used to express potentially offensive opinions without the risks of explicitly doing so.

A double entendre may exploit puns to convey the second meaning. Double entendres tend to rely more on multiple meanings of words, or different interpretations of the same primary meaning; they often exploit ambiguity and may be used to introduce it deliberately in a text. Sometimes using a homophone (i.e. a different spelling that yields the same pronunciation) can sometimes be used as a pun as well as a "double entendre" of the subject.

Structure

A person who is not familiar with the hidden or alternative meaning of a sentence may fail to detect its innuendos, aside from observing that others find it humorous for no apparent reason. Perhaps because it is not offensive to those who do not recognize it, innuendo is often used in sitcoms and other comedy considered suitable for children, who may enjoy the comedy while oblivious to its second meanings. The television show, SpongeBob SquarePants, is an example of this. Innuendo can also be used to make socially acceptable sexual humor. Shakespeare's play Much Ado About Nothing used this ploy to present a surface level description of the play as well as a pun on the Elizabethan use of "nothing" as slang for vagina.

A triple entendre is a phrase that can be understood in any of three ways. An example of this is the cover of the 1981 Rush album Moving Pictures. The cover of the LP depicted three different meanings of the title: professional movers physically moving large pictures, a crowd emotionally moved by the pictures, and a moving picture crew filming the event.

Comedian Benny Hill, whose television shows included straightforward sexual gags, has been jokingly called "the master of the single entendre".

Etymology

The expression comes from French double = "double" and entendre = "to hear", "to understand". Although it was a French expression when adopted into English, and although both words are part of modern French, their use together has disappeared in modern French. Double retains the same meaning in French, but entendre mostly translates nowadays to "hear" (although it still can be translated to "to understand" when used in certain contexts or higher language registers). French refers to such phrases with the term double sens (literally "double meaning"). Another French variation is sous-entendre (verb) or sous-entendu (noun), which means literally "under meaning", that is, with an implied meaning under the primary meaning.

The term "adianoeta" comes from Greek ἀδιανόητα and means "unintelligible".

Usage

Literature

The title of the Damon Knight's story "To Serve Man" is a double entendre, it can mean "to perform a service for humanity" or "to serve a human as food." An alien cookbook with the title "To Serve Man" is featured in the story, implying that the aliens eat humans.

Examples of sexual innuendo and double-entendre occur in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (14th century), in which the Wife of Bath's tale is laden with double entendres. The most famous of these may be her use of the word "queynte" to describe both domestic duties (from the homonym "quaint") and genitalia ("queynte" being a root of the modern English word cunt.)

The title of Sir Thomas More's 1516 fictional work Utopia is a double entendre because of the pun between two Greek-derived words that would have identical pronunciation: with his spelling, it means "no place" (as echoed later in Samuel Butler's later Erewhon); spelled as the rare word Eutopia, it is pronounced the same by English-speaking readers, but has the meaning "good place."

The poem Ozymandias by Percy Shelley published in 1818, is an example of ironic double entendre. Looking upon the shattered ruins of a colossus, the traveler reads:

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

The speaker believes that the king's sole intended meaning of "despair" was that nobody could hope to equal his achievements, but the traveler seems to find another meaning—that the reader might "despair" to find that all beings are mortal, that king and peasant alike inevitably share oblivion in the sands of time. This portrayal of an unintended double entendre exemplifies a case of the double entendre as the poet's figure of speech.

In Homer's "The Odyssey", when Odysseus is captured by the Cyclops Polyphemus, he tells the Cyclops that his name is No-man. When Odysseus attacks the Cyclops later that night and stabs him in the eye, the Cyclops runs out of his cave, yelling to the other cyclopes that "No-man has hurt me!", which leads the other cyclopes to take no action, allowing Odysseus and his men to escape.

Often, older media contain words or phrases that were innocuous at the time of publication, but have a more obscene or sexual meaning today, such as "have a gay old time" from The Flintstones ("gay" means "happy" in this context). One possibly intentional example is the character Charley Bates from Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, frequently referred to as "Master Bates." The word "masturbate" was in use when the book was written.

Stage performances

Flax on a distaff

Shakespeare frequently used innuendos in his plays. Indeed, Sir Toby in Twelfth Night is seen saying, in reference to Sir Andrew's hair, that "it hangs like flax on a distaff; and I hope to see a housewife take thee between her legs and spin it off;" the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet says that her husband had told Juliet when she was learning to walk that "Yea, dost thou fall upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;", or is told the time by Mercutio: "for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon"; and in Hamlet, Hamlet torments Ophelia with a series of sexual puns, viz. "country" (similar to "cunt").

In the UK, starting in the 19th century, Victorian morality disallowed innuendo in the theatre as being unpleasant, particularly for the ladies in the audience. In music hall songs, on the other hand, innuendo remained very popular. Marie Lloyd's song 'She Sits Among The Cabbages And Peas' is an example of this. (Music hall in this context is to be compared with Variety, the one common, low-class and vulgar; the other demi-monde, worldly and sometimes chic.) In the 20th century there began to be a bit of a crackdown on lewdness, including some prosecutions. It was the job of the Lord Chamberlain to examine the scripts of all plays for indecency. Nevertheless, some comedians still continued to get away with it. Max Miller, famously, had two books of jokes, a white book and a blue book, and would ask his audience which book they wanted to hear stories from. If they chose the blue book, it was their own choice and he could feel reasonably secure he was not offending anyone.

Television shows

In Britain, innuendo humour did not transfer to radio or cinema at first, but eventually and progressively it began to filter through from the late 1950s and 1960s on. Particularly significant in this respect were the Carry On series of films and the BBC radio series Round the Horne, although this humour is carried because of the apparent "nonsense" language that the protagonists use but in fact are having a "rude" conversation in Polari (gay slang). Spike Milligan, writer of The Goon Show, remarked that a lot of blue innuendo came from servicemen's jokes, which most of the cast understood (they all had been soldiers) and many of the audience understood, but which passed over the heads of most of the BBC producers and directors, most of whom were "Officer class."

In 1968, the office of the Lord Chamberlain ceased to have responsibility for censoring live entertainment, after the Theatres Act 1968. By the 1970s innuendo had become widely pervasive across much of the British media, including sitcoms and radio comedy, such as I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and Round the Horne. For example, in the 1970s series Are You Being Served?, Mrs. Slocombe frequently referred to her pet cat as her "pussy", apparently unaware of how easily her statement could be misinterpreted, such as "It's a wonder I'm here at all, you know. My pussy got soakin' wet. I had to dry it out in front of the fire before I left." Someone unfamiliar with sexual slang might find this statement funny simply because of the references to her cat, whereas generally a viewer would be expected to detect the innuendo ("pussy" is sexual slang for vulva).

In Monty Python's Flying Circus, in the game show "Interesting People," one of the interesting people had the talent of tossing his cat into a bucket of water. John Cleese, another guest, protested, "I'm much more interesting than a wet pussy!" In another episode Graham Chapman plays a surgeon, and after making his initial incision, declares, "What a great slit!"

Modern US comedies like The Office do not hide the fact of adding sexual innuendos into the script. One repeated example comes from main character Michael Scott who often deploys the catch-phrase "That's what she said" to turn another character's innocent statement retroactively into a sexual pun.

Some children's television shows feature double entendres to appeal to adults while still maintaining a "family" status. For example, Avatar: The Last Airbender features the proverb, "Love is brightest in the dark." This could be interpreted to mean that love is often exhibited in hard, "dark" times; however, it could also have sexual connotations.

Movies

Bawdy double entendres, such as "I'm the kinda girl who works for Paramount by day, and Fox all night", and "I feel like a million tonight—but only one at a time", were the trademark of Mae West, in her early-career vaudeville performances as well as in her later plays and movies.

Double entendres are popular in modern movies, as a way to conceal adult humor in a work aimed at general audiences. The James Bond films are rife with such humour. For example, in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), when Bond is disturbed by the telephone while in bed with a Danish girl, he explains to Moneypenny that he is busy brushing up on a little Danish. Moneypenny responds in kind by pointing out that Bond was known as "a cunning linguist", a play on the word "cunnilingus". This was further parodied in Austin Powers in Goldmember: "You may be a cunning linguist, but I'm a master debater!", in which the latter sounds like "masturbator". More obvious examples include Pussy Galore in Goldfinger and Holly Goodhead in Moonraker. These were also parodied in Austin Powers as Alotta Fagina and Felicity Shagwell.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail features a scene in which the King of Swamp Castle attempts to convince his son to marry a certain woman, repeatedly commenting on the size of her "tracts of land." At first he means the property he hopes to inherit from the marriage; however, the last time he says it, his gestures imply that he means her breasts.

Spaceballs, a parody of the Star Wars films which revolves around the Schwartz (a parody of the Force), uses numerous double entendres. One notable example occurs at the beginning of a duel between Lone Starr (the Spaceballs equivalent of Luke Skywalker) and Dark Helmet (the equivalent of Darth Vader). Their lightsabers are held at crotch height, resembling penises. Dark Helmet says, "I see your Schwartz is as big as mine. Now let's see how well you handle it."

In Pulp Fiction, the character Mia Wallace excuses herself to the restroom to "powder her nose", and subsequently snorts cocaine off of the bathroom sink.

Video games

Double entendres are less common in games, but characters do sometimes use them during cutscenes. For example, in the game Red Alert 3 a Soviet character, General Krukov, says that the Empire of the Rising Sun has 'penetrated the Motherland's defenses' and 'has thrust deeply into her soft nether regions', leaving a confused expression on his secretary's face. They are also common in James Bond games, as James Bond himself is known to use double entendres often as comic relief before he is going to have sex with a Bond girl, or when he and one of his allies and/or superiors talks with him about a woman. In Kirby's Epic Yarn, the epic yarn refers both to the visuals of the game, which are made of yarn, and the story, as an epic yarn, or story.

Music

Double entendres are very common in the titles and lyrics of pop songs, such as "If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me" by The Bellamy Brothers, which is based on an old Groucho Marx quote, where the person being talked to is asked, by one interpretation if they would be offended, and by the other, if they would press their body against the person doing the talking.

A great example in music is the Bruce Springsteen song "Pink Cadillac" where he is describing how the car feels with lines like "crushed velvet seats," and "oozing down the streets," which can be taken to describe a vagina. Another notable and popular song with a risque double entendre is AC/DC's "Big Balls" where as AC/DC describes balls as social events, with the double entendre meaning of testicles - "Some balls are held for charity, and some for fancy dress. But when they're held for pleasure, they're the balls that I like best. And my balls are always bouncing, to the left and to the right. It's my belief that my big balls should be held every night."

Singer and songwriter Bob Dylan, in his somewhat controversial song Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35, repeats the line "Everybody must get stoned." In context, the phrase refers to the punishment of stoning, as described in the Bible, but on another level it means to get stoned with narcotics. Another double entendre reference is seen in Rolling Stones song Brown Sugar where there are multiple ulterior references in the song.

The Billy Joe Royal song "Cherry Hill Park" is another good example. "Mary Hill loved to ride on the merry-go-round" and "Mary Hill was such a thrill after dark. Down at Cherry Hill Park."

The Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song "Don't Do Me Like That" is another example, with "doing" someone referring to either one person's general treatment of another or to sexual intercourse.

The Arctic Monkeys song, 'Fake Tales of San Francisco' features a line, 'and the weekend rockstars are in the toilets, practicing their lines.' This line is also a drug reference to the use of cocaine.

Another notable example is the Britney Spears song, "If You Seek Amy" which could be taken two ways. In the music video, she appears to be looking for a girl named Amy in a club, but the lyrics can be interpreted phonetically as "All of the boys and all of the girls are begging to F-U-C-K me."

The Rush album Moving Pictures is a rare example of a triple entendre. The left side of the front cover shows movers who are moving pictures. On the right side, people are shown crying because the pictures carried by the movers are emotionally "moving". Finally, the back cover features a film crew making a "moving picture" of the whole scene.

The Kesha song "Get Sleazy" features the line, "rat a tat tat on your dumb dumb drum, the beat so fat gunna make me come, um, um, um,... over to your place" With a pause before the words "over to your place"

Comics and pictoral

The Finbarr Saunders strip in the British comic Viz is built around double entendres. It is one of Viz's longest running strips, often titled 'Finbarr Saunders and his Double Entendres'.

Donald McGill was the creator of many seaside postcards which used innuendo.

Social interaction

Double entendres often arise in the replies given to inquiries. For example, the response to the question "What is the difference between ignorance and apathy?" would be "I don't know and I don't care". The dual meaning arises in the iteration (though from a first-person perspective) of the definitions of both terms within the reply ("I don't know" defining ignorance, and "I don't care" defining apathy). In the more obvious sense, the reply may simply indicate that the replier neither knows nor cares about what the difference is between the two words.

Another instance of double entendre involves responding to a seemingly innocuous sentence that could have a sexual meaning with the phrase "that's what she said". An example might be if one were to say "It's too big to fit in my mouth" upon being served a large sandwich, someone else could say "That's what she said," as if the statement were a reference to oral sex. This phrase was used in the "Wayne's World" Saturday Night Live skits, and was a recurring joke on the US sitcom The Office. The phrase "...as the actress said to the bishop" is used in a similar way.

See also

• Albur
• Coincidence
• Doublespeak
• Euphemism
• Paraprosdokian
• Pun
• Spoonerism
• That's what she said
• Word play