By Soumitra Bose/Mukesh Kumar Sinha
Its no-shackles, free-flowing, no-holds-barred, come-one-come-all, for-all double entendre time all pervasive in 24 Akbar Road, HQs of Congress party. In the absence of “(any) work”, insiders have resorted to “No Work Means Shakespeareanism-inspired, Double Entendre(s) in ‘2015 andaaz’ (camouflage) thereby expunging 130-year-old (India-related)history of the (Indian National) Congress.
{A doubleentendre (/dʌb(ə)l ɒnˈtɒndʒrə/, /duː-/, /-ʒrə/; French pronunciation: [dubl ɑ̃.tɑ̃dʁ(ə)]) is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to be understood in either of two ways, having a double meaning. Typically one of the interpretations is rather obvious whereas the other is more subtle. The more subtle of the interpretations may convey a message that would be socially awkward, sexually suggestive or offensive to state directly.} (The Oxford English Dictionary describes a double entendre as being used to “convey an indelicate meaning”, whilst Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines it as “a word or phrase that may be understood in two different ways, one of which is often sexual”)
A double entendre may exploit puns to convey the second meaning. Double entendres generally rely 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 a homophone (i.e. another word which sounds the same) can be used as a pun. When three or more meanings have been constructed, this is known as a “triple entendre”, etc.
A person who is unfamiliar 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 recognise it, innuendo is often used in sitcoms andother comedy considered suitable for children, who may enjoy the comedy while being oblivious to its second meanings. For example, it has been suggested that 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, such as in the cover of the 1981 Rush album Moving Pictures which shows a moving company carrying paintings out of a building while people are shown being emotionally moved and a film crew makes a “moving picture” of the whole scene.
Double Entendre Examples:
A double-entendre is a phrase or figure of speech that could have two meanings or that could be understood in two different ways.
- Innocent or innocuous
- Tawdry, bawdy or has some sexual overtone
There are many examples of double-entendre found in literature and in life. In fact, even William Shakespeare and Chaucer used double-entendres.
Historical Use of Double-Entendre : One of the earliest known examples of a double-entre found in literature dates back to the 14th century. In his famous work, The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer used many different examples of double-entendres. On of the most famous, however, is the use of the word “queynte” to describe both the domestic and womanly duties in the home as well as the female genitalia.
Double-entendre has been found in literature, movies and daily speech every since.
Some other examples of double-entendre include:
- Mercutio’s line from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: Tis no less [a good day], I tell you; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon.
- Charles Dickens character in Oliver Twistnamed Charley Bates but frequently referred to as Master Bates (the term masturbate was already in use when Dickens wrote Oliver Twist and had the same meaning then as it does today).
- The name of the James Bond character Pussy Galore in Goldfinger(Pussy is a slang name for the female genitalia)
- The name of the Belamy Brother’s song “If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body, Would You Hold It Against Me.” Would you hold it against me is an expression asking if you would be offended, but in this case, it can also be read as asking the person with the nice body to physically hold it against him.
Accidental Double-Entendres
Because double-entendres are words or phrases that can be interpreted in two ways, they aren’t always sexual in nature and sometimes they are not even intentional.
Some examples of accidental double-entendres that have been printed in newspapers or published on the Internet include:
- Panda mating fails: veterinarian takes over
- Miners refuse to work after death
- New obesity study looks for larger test group
- Children make nutritious snacks
- Criminals get nine months in violin case
Fun of the Double-Entendre
Double-entendres, when used intentionally, can be fun and entertaining because the idea is to get a laugh both from people in the know and from people who do not get the second (or sexual) meaning.
For example:
- In an episode of The Simpsons, when Marge was about to board a ship to Skull Island, Smithers said ‘I think women and seamen don’t mix.”
- In another episode of the Simpson’s, gold is discovered in the river and Kent Brockman says “Thanks, Mayor Simpson! From now on, we’ll all be taking golden showers.”
- In Finding Nemo, the characters are told “Ok, everyone, think dirty thoughts!”
These are just a few of many examples, as often movie and television producers today will use double-entendres so that shows and movies are both entertaining for kids (who do not get the second, sexual or tawdry reference) and for parents who do.
In Congress : 1. Ted Walsh – Horse Racing Commentator – ‘This is really a lovely horse. I once rode her mother.’
- New Zealand Rugby Commentator – ‘Andrew Mehrtens loves it when Daryl Gibson comes inside of him.’
- Pat Glenn, weightlifting commentator – ‘And this is Gregoriava from Bulgaria . I saw her snatch this morning and it was amazing!’
- Harry Carpenter at the Oxford-Cambridge boat race 1977 – ‘Ah, isn’t that nice. The wife of the Cambridge President is kissing the Cox of the Oxford crew..’
- US PGA Commentator – ‘One of the reasons Arnie (Arnold Palmer) is playing so well is that, before each tee shot, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them …. Oh my god!! What have I just said??’
- Carenza Lewis about finding food in the Middle Ages on ‘Time Team Live’ said: ‘You’d eat beaver if you could get it.’
- A female news anchor who, the day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn’t, turned to the weatherman and asked, ‘So Bob, where’s that eight inches you promised me last night?’ Not only did HE have to leave the set, but half the crew did too, because they were laughing so hard!
- Steve Ryder covering the US Masters: ‘Ballesteros felt much better today after a 69 yesterday.’
- Clair Frisby talking about a jumbo hot dog on ‘Look North’ said: ‘There’s nothing like a big hot sausage inside you on a cold night like this. ‘
10 Mike Hallett discussing missed snooker shots on ‘Sky Sports’: ‘Stephen Hendry jumps on Steve Davis’s misses every chance he gets.’
- Michael Buerk on watching Philippa Forrester cuddle up to a male astronomer for warmth during BBC1’s UK eclipse coverage remarked: ‘They seem cold out there. They’re rubbing each other and he’s only come in his shorts.’
- Ken Brown commentating on golfer Nick Faldo and his caddie Fanny Sunneson lining-up shots at the Scottish Open: ‘Some weeks Nick likes to use Fanny; other weeks he prefers to do it by himself.’
She has indicated to Mr Pande that she would not be able to be here because she has made herself available to Mr D in PMO.
Will this thing jerk me off?
Among the staffers: “Marriage is a fine institution, but I’m not ready for an institution.” “She leaned into him to soak up his warmth.
“You are so hot,” she said.
“It’s about time you noticed,” he teased.”
“Q: What’s the difference between an enzyme and a hormone?
A: You can’t hear an enzyme.”
Double Entendre
A double entendre uses a word in one sense and then switches its meaning for comic effect, or simply establishes a context in which the word will have one interpretation and then uses it in another sense. Usually one of the meanings is risqué, and many of the examples here will be too, so if you are uncomfortable with that, you should probably stop reading now. (Rhetorically, double entendre uses antanaclasis, reusing the same word or sound, but changing the meaning. A double entendre may be considered a kind of a pun.)
Mountains and alcohol: the higher you are, the higher you get.
When one of the meanings is risqué, you make that one the punch line. Here are three examples:
Dorothy Parker said, “If all the young women from all the seven sisters academies were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”
If you consider a reasonable mammal like the Elk, once a year the females go into heat, the males start rutting, and if a male can battle past the other males and get to a female, she never has a headache, but with humans, the females never go into heat, the males are always rutting, and the females find that a major headache. [A double antithesis and a double entendre.]
What did Bill Gates’ wife learn to here horror on their wedding night? Where he got the name “Micro soft.”
To find a double entendre, the question you must always ask yourself is, “How can I misunderstand this?”
How to construct a basic double entendre
The basic double entendre uses a word in one sense and then switches its meaning for comic effect. Here is how you do it:
Start with a list of concept words, that is, words that are relevant to the idea you are talking about.
Mark the words in your list that have multiple, relevant meanings.
For each of these words, construct jokes of the form: Setup: lead people to expect one meaning. Punch line: switch to the other meaning.
I hate alcohol. I can’t stand drinking—I keep falling down.
Revise with two things in mind: making sure the set up is long enough to implant the expectation firmly in the listeners’ minds, and make sure the switch in meaning comes at the very end, or as close to the end as syntactically possible.
Context-setup double entendre
To set up a double entendre by context, proceed as in the basic double entendre, but don’t use the word in the setup. Merely create a context in which the word will be interpreted one way. Its use in the punch line will still create a jarring double meaning.
“A politician is asked to run, wants to sit, and is expected to lie.”
The double entendre comes from the group membership of run, sit, and lie. The quote comes from Churchill, though he said “stand” rather than “run.”
In the land of pencils, Number 2 is Number One.
Cliché-setup double entendre
A cliché is a phrase so commonly used or so well known that people will instantly recognize it. You can use a cliché to set up the double entendre.
Start with a list of concept words. Where you can, find clichés using those words with a meaning not relevant to your topic. Form jokes as follows: Setup: use the cliché in the usual sense. Lead the audience along with the conventional meaning. Punch line: say something that switches the meaning to one relevant to what you are talking about.
Mae West: “When given a choice between two evils, I typically choose the one I haven’t tried yet.”
You take the high road and I’ll take the low road, and I’ll get elected before you.
For practice, you can just start with some clichés. Go through each of the clichés asking, “What else could this word mean?” Mark the clichés and words with multiple meanings. Form the joke the same way, using the cliché to set up the joke and the different meaning in the punch line. You can then save these to use when you find a context in which they are relevant. Using wordplay where it doesn’t contribute to some purpose just tries people’s patience.
Cliché-punch-line double entendre
You can also end the joke with the cliché. Find the clichés for your concept words as in the Cliché setup double entendre. Construct the jokes. Set up: lead them to expect one meaning by creating a context where they would normally take that meaning. Punch line: use the word in a cliché where it has a different meaning.
I know my computer loves me; it’s always going down.
“Spiritual”—an adjective meaning “of no worldly value.”
Dangling-modifier double entendre
You can get the same effect as shifting the meaning of a word by shifting the noun or verb a phrase modifies. You can work with a sentence, or simply a phrase that almost always has one meaning, but needn’t have.
I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I’ll never know. –Groucho Marx.
“So to speak.”
When somebody says something that could be reinterpreted as risqué, murmur “So to speak,” which will call everybody’s attention to it without saying anything untoward yourself.
Double entendre on multiple opposites
You can get double entendres from words that have more than one opposite, for example
“Turn left here.”
“Right here?”
“No left.”
“I mean, ‘Left here?’”
“Right.”
It is not hard to understand the process of constructing double entendres, but it can take the eye of an editor to find the words with double meanings, and clichés, where you wish to use them, are hard to remember.
But double entendres can be a delight, whether using the word twice, or set up from context, or using a cliché or any other way. The fact that they are so often risqué should not be used against them. Given the blunt and crude sexual language one encounters these days, it’s pleasant to find some subtlety and wit in the area
“Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.”
“Do I have your permission to rock away and give you the ride of your life?” Why does it feel like he’s secretly talking dirty to me? “Yeah, go ahead, rock it nice and hard,” I say without thinking, then bite down on my lip as the dirty section of my brain catches up with me. Honestly, I didn’t even know that side existed.”
Bottom Line : Even the Big Shots in 24 Akbar Road are freely using double entendres these days and are having peels of laughter all through the day. Politically, there is indeed no work for them.
BOX
MAKE Ur Own Double Entendre
Double Entendre : A double entendre uses a word in one sense and then switches its meaning for comic effect, or simply establishes a context in which the word will have one interpretation and then uses it in another sense. Usually one of the meanings is risqué, and many of the examples here will be too, so if you are uncomfortable with that, you should probably stop reading now. (Rhetorically, double entendre uses antanaclasis, reusing the same word or sound, but changing the meaning. A double entendre may be considered a kind of a pun.)
Mountains and alcohol: the higher you are, the higher you get.
When one of the meanings is risqué, you make that one the punch line. Here are three examples:
Dorothy Parker said, “If all the young women from all the seven sisters academies were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”
If you consider a reasonable mammal like the Elk, once a year the females go into heat, the males start rutting, and if a male can battle past the other males and get to a female, she never has a headache, but with humans, the females never go into heat, the males are always rutting, and the females find that a major headache. [A double antithesis and a double entendre.]
What did Bill Gates’ wife learn to here horror on their wedding night? Where he got the name “Micro soft.”
To find a double entendre, the question you must always ask yourself is, “How can I misunderstand this?”
How to construct a basic double entendre
The basic double entendre uses a word in one sense and then switches its meaning for comic effect. Here is how you do it:
Start with a list of concept words, that is, words that are relevant to the idea you are talking about.
Mark the words in your list that have multiple, relevant meanings.
For each of these words, construct jokes of the form: Setup: lead people to expect one meaning. Punch line: switch to the other meaning.
I hate alcohol. I can’t stand drinking—I keep falling down.
Revise with two things in mind: making sure the set up is long enough to implant the expectation firmly in the listeners’ minds, and make sure the switch in meaning comes at the very end, or as close to the end as syntactically possible.
Context-setup double entendre
To set up a double entendre by context, proceed as in the basic double entendre, but don’t use the word in the setup. Merely create a context in which the word will be interpreted one way. Its use in the punch line will still create a jarring double meaning.
“A politician is asked to run, wants to sit, and is expected to lie.”
The double entendre comes from the group membership of run, sit, and lie. The quote comes from Churchill, though he said “stand” rather than “run.”
In the land of pencils, Number 2 is Number One.
Cliché-setup double entendre
A cliché is a phrase so commonly used or so well known that people will instantly recognize it. You can use a cliché to set up the double entendre.
Start with a list of concept words. Where you can, find clichés using those words with a meaning not relevant to your topic. Form jokes as follows: Setup: use the cliché in the usual sense. Lead the audience along with the conventional meaning. Punch line: say something that switches the meaning to one relevant to what you are talking about.
Mae West: “When given a choice between two evils, I typically choose the one I haven’t tried yet.”
You take the high road and I’ll take the low road, and I’ll get elected before you.
For practice, you can just start with some clichés. Go through each of the clichés asking, “What else could this word mean?” Mark the clichés and words with multiple meanings. Form the joke the same way, using the cliché to set up the joke and the different meaning in the punch line. You can then save these to use when you find a context in which they are relevant. Using wordplay where it doesn’t contribute to some purpose just tries people’s patience.
Cliché-punch-line double entendre
You can also end the joke with the cliché. Find the clichés for your concept words as in the Cliché setup double entendre. Construct the jokes. Set up: lead them to expect one meaning by creating a context where they would normally take that meaning. Punch line: use the word in a cliché where it has a different meaning.
I know my computer loves me; it’s always going down.
“Spiritual”—an adjective meaning “of no worldly value.”
Dangling-modifier double entendre
You can get the same effect as shifting the meaning of a word by shifting the noun or verb a phrase modifies. You can work with a sentence, or simply a phrase that almost always has one meaning, but needn’t have.
I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I’ll never know. –Groucho Marx.
“So to speak.”
When somebody says something that could be reinterpreted as risqué, murmur “So to speak,” which will call everybody’s attention to it without saying anything untoward yourself.
Double entendre on multiple opposites
You can get double entendres from words that have more than one opposite, for example
“Turn left here.”
“Right here?”
“No left.”
“I mean, ‘Left here?’”
“Right.”
It is not hard to understand the process of constructing double entendres, but it can take the eye of an editor to find the words with double meanings, and clichés, where you wish to use them, are hard to remember.
But double entendres can be a delight, whether using the word twice, or set up from context, or using a cliché or any other way. The fact that they are so often risqué should not be used against them. Given the blunt and crude sexual language one encounters these days, it’s pleasant to find some subtlety and wit in the area.
