Have a Gay Old Time: Difference between revisions

* Let's not forget [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfOQ3O4kD3I AYDS]. "Why take a diet pill, when you can enjoy AYDS."

** From ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'':

'''Marge''': [Smiling] No, I have AYDS! }}

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdv4KgooZQE Cockburns] is not pronounced the modern way, and is not the kind of product one might think it to be if it ''were'' pronounced that way. (What that kind of product might be shall now be left to your imagination, [[Nothing Is Scarier|where it may be infinitely worse]].)

* In [[DC Comics]], Speedy ([[Green Arrow]]'s Ward) once points out "Y'see, my straight friends and I no longer had anything in common." He means "Y'see, my non-drug-taking friends and I no longer had anything in common." The sentence can be converted to modern vernacular, though, if you tack "-edge" onto the end of "straight"; maybe future printings will take advantage of this. His name didn't escape many people, either.

* Played for laughs in a ''[[Cable]] & [[Deadpool]]'' issue:

* In 1942, Gardner Fox and Howard Purcell created a swashbuckling hero who battled evil from beyond the grave. His name? ''[[wikipedia:Gay Ghost|The Gay Ghost.]]'' He reappeared in [[Grant Morrison]]'s ''[[Animal Man]]'' as a resident of Comic Book Limbo, where he said he didn't want to be brought back because of the redefining of the word "gay." He was later brought back anyway, but as ''The GRIM Ghost.'' In his inaugural story, the word "queer" comes up several times, and his ability to possess the bodies of the living is described as "the power to enter men's bodies".

* [http://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/54182.html "He was makin' love to Minnie!"]

* Midge's line in ''[[Vertigo]]'' about "the gay old Bohemian days of gay old San Francisco'' seems rather on-the-nose these days.

* Another [[Alfred Hitchcock|Hitchcock]] example can be found in ''[[North by Northwest]]'', during the scene where Vandamm meets with Thornhill at the Mount Rushmore cafeteria:

* In a deleted scene from ''[[Back to The Future]]'' (available on the DVD), Marty worries about hitting on his own mother:

'''Doc''': Why ''shouldn't'' you be happy? }}

** Doc also thinks that "hitting on" means actual hitting.

* ''[[The Player]]'' uses both meanings in the exchange between June and Griffin: "Are you making love to me?" "Yes. I guess I am. I want to make love to you."

* Parodied in the [[Time Travel]] romantic comedy ''[[Kate and Leopold]]'' regarding the Brooklyn Bridge:

** A modern time traveler's amusement at the speech in which the Bridge is repeatedly called "an erection" is what causes Leopold to notice him in the first place.

** It's quite hard not to laugh at Roebling proclaiming proudly, "Behold, rising before you, the greatest erection on the continent... the greatest erection of the age... the greatest erection on the planet!" It doesn't get much better when he continually refers to it as "My great erection!"

* One [[Three Stooges]] short is called ''Boobs In Arms''. No, they do not meet a woman with [[Gag Boobs]].

* Invoked in the second ''[[Ice Age]]'' movie, when Manny is telling the kids a story about a young burro:

'''Manny''': See, that's why I called it a burro! }}

* The Beatles movie ''[[Yellow Submarine]]'' features a character named Jeremy Hilary Boob, Ph.D. <ref>Who?</ref>

** Also in ''[[The Hobbit]]'', one of the songs the Elves sing as Bilbo and the Dwarves enter Rivendell has the line "The faggots are reeking". (That's got yet another one in it, though not a funny one--"reek" meaning "smoke" rather than "stink".)

** The double meaning of 'ass' can cause some trouble, too, with all those [[Crack Pairing|horribly wrong]] [[Slash Fic|slash fics]] out there.

** "Bag end is a queer place, and its folks are even queerer".

** It doesn't [[Heh, Heh, You Said "X"|come up]] much in the book, but how can we forget the swamp ''Wetwang??''

* In Anthony Hope's 1894 novel ''[[The Prisoner of Zenda]]'', in which an Englishman is obliged to impersonate the King of [[Ruritania]], the protagonist is at one point called upon to hold up the ruse by making love to the King's fiancée. In Simon Hawke's 1984 novel ''[[Time Wars|The Zenda Vendetta]]'', in which a [[Time Travel|time-traveller]] is obliged to impersonate the Englishman impersonating the King, the corresponding scene has additional dialogue inserted to forestall any misapprehension on the part of the modern reader.

* ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]: [[The Silver Chair]]'': where the character of Jill Pole (a school-aged girl) is said to have "made love" to an entire castle full of giants:

** "everyone skipped back (some of the sailors with ejaculations I will not put in writing)" - from C. S. Lewis's ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]'' book ''[[The Voyage of the Dawn Treader]]'', an example of a writer trying to use a euphemism and ending up with a [[Double Entendre]].

* ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]''

* In ''[[The Pickwick Papers]]'', Sam Weller comments that he might marry a rich young woman without a title, "if she made wery fierce love to me". Later, a woman proceeds to "titillate the nose" of another woman, who has just fainted.

* ''[[Little Women]]'' contains this doozy:

** As Alcott remarked in the beginning of part two: "I can only say with Mrs. March, 'What ''can'' you expect when you have four gay girls in the house?'"

* In ''[[Emma]]'' by [[Jane Austen]], Mr Elton "violently made love" to Emma in a carriage.

* Anyone who's read 18th century literature has snickered at phrases like "he wanted the punishment of a headmaster" or "she wanted her mistress's soft hands". But "want" originally meant "lack" or "need"; the modern meaning of "desire" or "to wish for" didn't arise until the 19th century.

* An intentional [[Discworld]] example comes in ''Making Money'', when Moist and Bent discuss the architecture of the Royal Bank:

'Ah! Yes? Right!' said Moist. 'You know, I wouldn't be surprised if not many people knew that.' }}

** Pratchett really likes this joke. At a reading of his that was held in an audience hall converted from a large old church with rather beautiful architecture, including a high, arched ceiling, Pratchett's first words on stepping onto stage were, "Fornication...is why we are all here today."

** An additional [[Sherlock Holmes]] example is the use of "toilet," which at the time referred to one's personal grooming, washing, etc. ("...no one can glance at your toilet and attire without seeing that your disturbance dates from the moment of your waking.")

** From 'The Adventure of the Empty House' (granted, Doyle ''probably'' wasn't going for a double meaning here):

** From 'Shoscombe Old Place', Watson describes Sir Robert Norberton as being:

* [[Agatha Christie]]'s [[Hercule Poirot]] often ejaculates his words as well. "Poirot ejaculated:" is sometimes on an entirely separate paragraph from both the speech itself and the preceding paragraph, so it really stands out and makes it unbelievably hard not to laugh out loud.

* [[Jeeves and Wooster (novel)|Bertie Wooster]] would often 'ejaculate', and then [[Lampshade Hanging|wonder if that was the word he wanted]].

* Parodied in [[Robert Anton Wilson]]'s ''Schrödinger's Cat'' Trilogy- the final line in a scene full of Tom Swifties- "'I'm coming', he ejaculated."

* And, as if it wasn't awkward enough to read ''[[Moby Dick]]'' and find the word "sperm" each five pages or so, there's also a strange example of this instance:

** Not to mention that "moby" means "large, immense, or impressive," making the title even funnier.

** Don't forget this passage: "Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say, - Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness."

* The ''Moby-Dick'' "queer" example seems to have been lost, and it's too good to stay that way:

* It also was used in ''[[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz]]''. Disturbingly, it's usually non-human characters who say it.

* Not only do the characters in Stanley G. Weinbaum's science fiction classic ''[[A Martian Odyssey]]'' ejaculate frequently, one of them is named ''[[Bilingual Bonus|Putz]]''. Weinbaum most likely did this [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|intentionally]].

* In the 1930s [[Dr. Seuss]] illustrated ''The Pocket Book of Boners'', a humorous collection of mistakes found in textbooks. As [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/29/the-creepiest-childrens-b_n_513489.html#s75154 the ''Huffington Post'' put it], "If someone tells you they have a 'pocket book of boners,' you should probably turn and walk in the other direction. No wait, run."

* This [[Emily Dickinson]] poem:

Of Water -- and of me -- }}

** To clarify, Ms. Dickinson was referring to ''eye''balls.

** Her book ''[[Death on the Nile]]'' might just be the king of this trope. Not only does a character hope that "this girl might be enough to turn the man straight", but one couple talks about "making whoopie" in a restaurant (from context, it seems to mean "living luxuriously") and one character expresses incredulity that "[[Hermaphrodite|that dumb girl totes a dick?!]]" -- "dick" meaning [[Private Detective]], obviously.

** Murder on the Links makes a valiant attempt at the title, though, when a girl {{spoiler|whom he later marries}} asks Hastings if he is in town with his boss. She phrases it thusly.

* The characters in [[Damon Runyon]]'s stories refer to their "straight monikers" -- their real names, as opposed to nicknames like Harry the Horse.

* There was a series of kids' mystery books called ''Something Queer Is Going On''. Titles like that certainly wouldn't work today. The original books, perhaps understandably, seem to have fallen out of print. Author Elizabeth Levy has re-branded the newer titles in the series as ''The Fletcher Mysteries''.

* Thomas of Celano's Life of Saint Francis includes the following memorable description: 'Indeed, he was always occupied with Jesus; Jesus he bore in his heart, Jesus in his mouth, Jesus in his ears, Jesus in his eyes, Jesus in his hands, Jesus in the rest of his members.'

* In the context of explaining why divorce is a bad thing, [[G. K. Chesterton]] was writing about how kids are better off if they are sure their parents aren't just waiting until the kids grow up so that the parents can get a divorce, and one of his examples was this:

** Referring to the daughter's "coming out," in the sense of being a debutante who comes of age.

* The meaning of the word "hypochondria" has changed dramatically over the centuries. It derives from the word "hypochondrium", a Greek medical term for the abdomen, and was first used to describe pain arising from malarial infection of the liver and spleen. Centuries later the meaning had changed to "depression", which is how it was used all the way from the time of Davenant until that of Trollope. It was only in mid to late Victorian times that the word reached its current (and hotly debated) meaning.

** "Orgy" is also used in ''[[The Adventures of Tom Sawyer]]'' when talking about what they will do when they are thieves, to which Huck Finn asks, "What are those?" Then Tom says, "Beats me! But we gotta have 'em!" Ugh.

** There are a group of fairies coming home from an orgy in ''[[Peter Pan]]''.

** The word comes up a fair amount in [[H.P. Lovecraft]] as well. The orgies in question are generally left vague, but mostly don't sound sexual, and given the sort of lifeforms one encounters in Lovecraft's stories, we can really only hope.

* Early on in ''[[A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man]]'' the narrator describes a washbasin with "cocks with printing on it" which is "queer".

** There's also the food fight, described as a "delightful orgy" (one participant has "cream dripping from his whiskers", which is just bog-standard [[Accidental Innuendo]] -- and the only ones not taking part are the three priests, natch). And when Falshed is trapped by the Grand Inquisitor, he becomes worried that "these three fiends were going to have their way with him".

* This happens about 3 times in the course of two pages in the [[Mary Shelley]] novel ''[[Frankenstein (novel)|Frankenstein]]''.

'''Alphonse Frankenstein''': William is dead!-that sweet child, whose smiles delighted and warmed my heart, who was so gentle, yet so gay! }}

* In ''[[A Tree Grows in Brooklyn]]'', Sissy calls all her husbands and lovers "John" for her convenience, and her family often refers to them as "Sissy's John" or "The John". No, she's not ''that'' kind of woman, as she'd be the first to insist. (However, for a book written in 1943, the meaning of "love-making" in ''A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'' is much like the contemporary euphemism: it's described as sometimes involving a couch and likely to result in a child.

* Gunby Hadath's magnificent 1913 novel "Schoolboy Grit". Wherein a scholarship boy is forced to admit that, being from a non-public school background he knows nothing of fagging (and is much derided for his ignorance), a teacher "kept crumpling the letters up and sending them to the wastepaper basket, accompanied by many grunts, groans and ejaculations" and, most perplexingly, a character is left far more 'light hearted and gay' after being 'smacked in the googlies' with a towel by another boy. (It's a cricketing term.)

* The handbook for Alcoholics Anonymous, written in 1939, has many instances of this trope. For example:

* Modern writer Patrick O'Brian has too much fun with this trope in a scene in the eighth book of his [[Aubrey-Maturin]] series, ''The Ionian Mission'', set in pre-Victorian times, where Jack's former protegé Captain Babbington insist the women on his ship are all Lesbians, whom they rescued from pirates and are escorting to their home of Lesbos. Seriously, their conversation has to be read to be believed.

* ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'' is very, very guilty of this. It only increases the [[Ho Yay]].

* ''[[The Secret Garden]]'', typically for its time, has plenty of uses of "queer" ("Am I queer?" "Yes, very."), but also, due to Colin's perceived disability, does it with "straight" as well, such as when he stands up for the first time: '"He's as straight as I am!" cried Dickon. "He's as straight as any lad i' Yorkshire!"' (If this is good news, it may be dampened slightly a couple of paragraphs later when Ben Weatherstaff observes, "There's not a knob on thee.")

** A bit in the very first page makes Mary's mother sound like a [[Yaoi Fangirl]] or [[Slash|slash ficcer]].

* Like many examples in this list, ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' uses "queer" in its original sense. Unlike many examples in this list, it started doing so in 1996.

* A novel written in the 20s about the Napoleonic wars had the line "the flaming city had a queer gayness to it".

** And many were the occasions when Archie "got erect" rather than just standing up.

* Although ''[[Daisy Miller]]'' contains plenty of intentional [[Double Entendre|Double Entendres]], some more are added thanks to this trope:

* One of the main characters of ''[[Swallows and Amazons]]'' is a young girl named "Able-Seaman Titty". Nobody even considers the possibility that this might be funny.

** Actually it gets worse, in later books a character called Richard who is universally called Dick is added. Add to this "Roger the Cabin boy", the main characters boat being the Swallow, most characters being described as Seamen (Salty Seaman is I believe used at one point), the word tackle crops up a lot as well which has connotations, Captain Flint's cannon being described as his mighty weapon and the fact that bird watching is a major part of the series with its attending Tits and Boobies has lead to a lot of unintended mirth.

* ''[[Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell]]'', while a recent book, is deliberately written with a somewhat antiquated style and word choice. While it avoids some of the more obvious instances, it tends to use the word "intimacy" where nowadays we would probably say "friendship", introducing [[Ho Yay|Ho and Lesyay]] implications into apparently platonic relationships. It also uses the older meaning of "toilet".

* [[Ernest Hemingway]]'s ''[[For Whom the Bell Tolls]]'' features this little gem:

 

* From ''[[Tess of the D'Urbervilles]]'':

* One of Chaucer's ''[[The Canterbury Tales]]'' contains a bit about a group of hunters who, after a successful kill, "laughed and were gay".

* [[Victor Hugo]]'s ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (novel)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]'' gives us this little gem:

* ''[[Adventures of Huckleberry Finn|The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]'' is fond of using the phrase "get up and hump yourself". Considering how it's common [[School Study Media]], [[Heh, Heh, You Said "X"|the classroom snickering is inevitable]].

* ''[[The Railway Series]]'' has the word gay used in its original context a number of times. The series did begin in the mid-1940s after all. The word was left in each time for the later [[Thomas the Tank Engine|televised adaptation]], with no reference to the modern meaning at all. Just casually used in its original context.

** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] on ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'' in the episode "Notapusy", which bleeped out the words "fag" and "pussy" even in non-offensive contexts.

* Parodied in an ''[['Allo 'Allo!|Allo Allo]]'' episode where Colonel Strohm and [[Ambiguously Gay|Lieutenant Gruber]] are dreading the thought of participating in the Invasion of Britain:

'''Gruber''': Such a barbaric place... }}

* Let's not forget the character on the [[The Eighties|1980s]] sitcom ''[[Growing Pains]]'' who was named Boner. No wonder you never see that show in reruns...

* Not surprisingly, ''[[Three's Company]]'' played with this, given the role Jack was playing with the landlords. A most memorable time was, when asked directly in a court case, "Are you gay?" Jack replies, "Well, sometimes, but I can be sad sometimes too."

* Occurs several times (often intentional) in ''[[Dad's Army|Dads Army]]'', usually courtesy of Lance Corporal Jones.

* In the ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' episode "The Trouble with Tribbles", Bones refers to the tribbles as "bisexual" - meaning that they're hermaphroditic and can reproduce independently. Though this term can still be used this way by biologists, to most modern viewers it sounds as if he's speculating on the tribbles' sexual preference. This is confusing, to say the least.

** It's quite amusing to see the first promo for ''Star Trek'', which proclaims it to be an "adult space adventure". They were trying to explain that ''Star Trek'' was going to be more a serious show than silly, family-oriented ''[[Lost in Space]]'', but using "adult" in that context now sounds like a euphemism for [[Porn Tropes|something else]].

* Used deliberately in ''[[Blackadder]]'' a few times. Sometimes it's apparently just to sound archaic ("The streets have never been so gay!"), but at least once it is deliberately used as a double entendre:

** It's particularly prevalent in the final series, especially with George's lines 'Ready to give the Hun a taste of British spunk' etc.

** ''Blackadder Goes Forth'' has some great fun with old-fashioned phrases which now sound, well, a bit pervy. A terrific moment in "General Hospital" is when [[Stephen Fry]]'s General Melchett informs Blackadder that after his undercover work, "Captain Darling will pump you thoroughly in the debriefing room!" (to "pump" someone at the time meaning to question them for information); Blackadder (whose mentality was always strangely modern) replies with, "Not while I have my strength, he won't."

*** These are certainly not ony deliberate but period-accurate double entendres. Spunk's meaning was already what it is well before the Great War.

* The song "Lick a Lolly" from ''[[The Electric Company]]'' probably didn't raise too many eyebrows in the '70s, but modern viewers tend to hear a... less child-friendly subtext. The fact that the performers are adults in childlike costume doesn't help.

"And Solly says "Oh golly!" when he sees a lolly!" }}

* In ''[[Cosmos]]'', Carl Sagan speculates about the type of life that may exist in the clouds of Jupiter. He calls them "sinkers and floaters."

== Music ==

* The ''Secret Origin'' version of the song "Hate Everyone" by [[Say Anything]].

* As suggested by the title, innocuous uses of the term "gay", as in "[[Even the Guys Want Him|We'll all feel gay]] when Johnny comes marching home". The [[Trope Namer|trope name itself]] comes from the last line of ''[[The Flintstones]]'' theme song.

** An instance that rings especially odd to modern ears occurs in a hit song of the 1930s, "Girls Were Made To Love And Kiss"; the singer, defending his womanizing ways, asks "Shall I be blamed if God has made me gay?" (Given that the word was already Jazz slang for both "swinger" and "homosexual" by that time, this may have been an intentional [[Double Entendre]], an in-joke that most listeners would miss.)

** A more contemporary example is [[Nirvana]]'s "All Apologies": "What else should I say/everyone is gay".

** "No Milk Today" by [[Herman's Hermits|Hermans Hermits]].

** Dean Martin's song ''That's Amore'' has the lyrics "''Tippy-tippy-tay''/''Like a gay tarantella''". [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by [[Orson Welles]] at Martin's Celebrity Roast.

* Nowadays, it's hard enough during Christmas to find time to ''Deck The Halls'' with boughs of holly; some of us will never manage "don we now our gay apparel."

** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in one of ventriloquist Jeff Dunham's Christmas specials, where one of the puppets sings the line, suddenly realizes what he has said, and [[Heh, Heh, You Said "X"|giggles about it]].

* Gary Puckett and the Union Gap did a song back in [[The Sixties]] called "Young Girl" in which he ''is'' using it toward what the Japanese refer to as ''Lolicon'' and what Americans would call ''[[Jail Bait]]''.

* In the [["The Villain Sucks" Song]] of ''[[How the Grinch Stole Christmas (animation)|How the Grinch Stole Christmas]]'' (as sung by the fantastic late [[Thurl Ravenscroft]]), one of the lines in the song's last verse reads as follows:

** [[Blatant Lies|Clearly]], he's talking about dried beef.

* There's an old folk song: "Ruben Ruben I've been thinking, What a queer world it would be If the men were all transported Far beyond the northern sea. Rachel Rachel I've been thinking what a gay world it would be If the girls were all transported Far beyond the northern sea." Well, yes, if they sent all the men or all the women away, [[Sitch Sexuality|it would be a queer/gay world]].

* "Flowers On The Wall" (1966) by the Statler Brothers featured [[Sanity Slippage Song|bleak undercurrent]] as well as lyrics that demanded revision in subsequent cover versions.

''As long as I can dream it's hard to slow this swinger down'' }}

* In "The Pub With No Beer" by Slim Dusty, "The cook's acting queer".

* Due to perceived [[Unfortunate Implications]], Debussy's ''Children's Corner No. 6'' is often referred to as "The Cakewalk" instead of its proper title, "The Golliwoggs' Cakewalk". Either that, or the second word is misspelled "golliwogs'" without the double final G. This is an example of this trope because Florence Kate Upton's Golliwogg, which Debussy was specifically referencing, was a heroic figure, the [[Harry Potter]] of his day; it wasn't until [[Enid Blyton]] got hold of the character type that it became the racist stereotype it is today (and acquired the present spelling).

* From the [[World War One]] era song "It's a Long Way to Tipperary":

[[Oireland|Came an Irish lad one day,]]<br />

[[City of Gold|All the streets were paved with gold,]]<br />

* The last line of the traditional ''London Bridge Is Falling Down'' was ''And a gay lady'', not ''My fair lady''. This replacement appears to have happened just out of superior rhythm or similar, however, as the change long predates the modern meaning of the word.

* From Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again (Naturally)":

* "Under the Boardwalk", written in the 60s, has the singer saying that he and his baby will be "making love under the boardwalk". Presumably this means the sweet-talking kind and not the kind that would lead to getting sand in uncomfortable places. (Modern covers sometimes say "we'll be fallin' in love" instead.)

* An amusing inversion by a modern songwriter: Derek Webb's song "Freddie, Please" contains the line "Freddie, can't you see, brother, you're the one who's queer?" Most people in 2009 would take "queer" to mean "homosexual", but Webb intentionally uses it to mean "abnormal". {{spoiler|The song is about Fred Phelps, a notoriously homophobic pastor.}}

* The song "To Know Him/Her Is To Love Him/Her" by Phil Spector includes the casual line "I'll make love to her/him", then obviously having the older meaning.

* [[The Shaggs]]' song "Why Do I Feel" is even more hilarious with this in mind:

I try to think of something gay" }}

* George Jones's song "A Rose from the Bride's Bouquet" takes on rather a different context when looked at from this light:

For the girl was my sweetheart and the boy my best friend }}

* "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcmAdS8vkDA Glitter and Be Gay]" from [[Leonard Bernstein|Leonard Bernstein's]] ''Candide''.

* GWAR does this in ''The Horror of [[Eldritch Abomination|Yig]]''. Odd considering that this isn't an old song, and the slang term existed when it came out:

"Yig now he makes things impossibly ''queer...''" }}

* The classic standard "Am I Blue?" includes the line, ''Was I gay, until today...''

* Clive Richarson's composition [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrHoKfVHsC8 "Gay Activity"]. Used, among other things, in ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]''.

* The original lyrics of the Kentucky State Song (My Old Kentucky Home) did a double whammy, by beginning:

Tis summer, the darkies are gay }}

 

The lyric has since been changed from "darkies" to "people", but gay is still official. }}

* [[The Kinks]]' "A Well-Respected Man" mentions that the title character "likes his fags the best". They're referring to cigarettes, of course.

* "Kentucky Gambler" by [[Merle Haggard]] (written by [[Dolly Parton]]): "Into the gay casino in Nevada's town of Reno."

* [[MF DOOM]]'s "Batty Boyz" plays with this trope by using clips from the 50's and 60's in its introduction.

"Now don't get gay with me!" "Gay, sir, I'm far from gay." }}

* An indirect example could be the classic jazz/folk tune "I'm Just Wild About Harry" (a broadway tune that was momorably covered by the [[Deader Than Disco|groundbreaking but largely forgotten]] jazz musician [[Al Jolson]]). At the time, the song was just seen as a comically-exaggerated but sentimental gesture of friendship. Today, the following lyrics would suggest something a little more... sensual (at least when sung by a male):

He's sweet just like chocolate candy and just like honey from the bee.'' }}

* The [[Surf Rock]] band [[The Trashmen]] had a song about how awesome their car was called "My Woodie".

 

 

* In [[Hancock's Half Hour]], in 'A Sunday Afternoon At Home', Tony once contrasts Sunday afternoon in continental Europe, where 'everything's gay' compared to Britain 'not over here'. All he meant was that in the 1950s Europeans had a wider variety of activities available to them in the weekend than British people did...

* Lucille Ball's old radio show, ''My Favorite Husband'', was full of this:

** One episode featured Liz and her friend hiring a flirtatious French tutor. Her friend's husband described the first encounter like so:

* In the 9/5/45 episode of the ''Superman'' radio series, during a story arc in which [[Superman]] teamed up with Batman and Robin, Jimmy is responding to Lois' invitation to cover the opening of a new amusement park - he's meeting Dick Grayson at the Y for a swim, after which they're having dinner. But, he tells her, she can join them as their guest. To which Lois says, "You get Dick and meet me downstairs in fifteen minutes..."

** Just to make sure that the more obscure of the ''two'' [[Double Entendre|Double Entendres]] doesn't go over your head, "dining at the Y" is a modern euphemism for cunnilingus, "the Y" of course being...

* Who could forget the classic line from ''[[The Importance of Being Earnest]]'': "The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain"? (Being [[Oscar Wilde]], it could have been dirtier than we think.)

* ''Brigadoon'' has this dialogue after Tommy sings "The Heather of the Hill":

'''Fiona''': Oh! There's a difference between makin' love an' jus' bein' sentimental because ye're tired. }}

* A [[Gilbert and Sullivan]] line: "Be firm, be firm, my pecker" in ''Trial By Jury''. ("Pecker" means nose, as in the old saying "keep your pecker up," but modern audiences will assume something different.)

*** Considering that entire scene is mostly just for a [[Country Matters]] joke, Shakespeare probably would have ''approved'' of this.

** Ellen Terry, an actress who played Beatrice (a character who is rather outspokenly against the idea of getting married for the first two acts) from ''[[Much Ado About Nothing]]'' had this to say about the difficulty in playing the part:

** Examples in ''[[Julius Caesar (theatre)|Julius Caesar]]'':

*** Between Cassius and Brutus - "I have not from your eyes that gentleness/ And show of love as I was wont to have." and "Forgets the shows of Love to ther men." and "That I do fawn on men and hug them hard/ And after scandal them", "I cannot drink too much of Brutus' love."

* Happens ''over and over again'' in [[Hedda Gabler]] (translated into English in the 1950s). The word "gay" is used repeatedly as a euphemism between the characters for "overly hedonistic or sinful"... and the way they treat it as a euphemism just makes it more unintentionally funny.

* From ''[[Angels in America]]'' (itself subtitled: ''A Gay Fantasia on National Themes'', this itself ''not'' an example):

'''Prior''': "Gay homosexual, not bonny, blithe and... never mind." }}

* There's a scene in a play I saw a long time ago that I think was called "Young Rube" which was about the life of Rube Goldberg, and his imaginary friend Boob [[Mc Nutt]]. Rube at one point tells of Boob's antics to a friend, who goes out and tells... a bar full of sailors, "Everyone should listen to their Boob!" As expected, everyone suddenly tries to lean their head down to their chest.

== Web Original ==

* Don't forget ''[http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/The+Cheese+Family/ The Cheese Family]'':

"Why, that's a fantastic idea" ejaculated Eddy. "I shall awaken our baby children Belle and Bill". }}

* [http://www.womenrussia.com/glossary.htm This site] gives a list of common mistranslations used by women on Russian dating agencies, often caused by [[Blind Idiot Translation|using outdated dictionaries for translation]] -- among them are "gay" (used in the old sense), "intercourse" (not what you think) and "intercourse agency" (a dating agency).

* [http://blinkytreefrog.livejournal.com/179630.html Invisible Dick] The linked page is full of these.

* Looking up 'spunk' at the Urban Dictionary will net you references to Australian slang for a really hot guy (supposedly a contraction of "sexy punk"), and American slang for marijuana. It's even more fun to look it up on dictionary.com--not only does the word "punk" appear again (in an even ''more'' obscure meaning involving wood--no, not ''that'' kind of wood, the kind you light fireworks with!)--but it brings up ads for sperm banks. Kinda puts a whole new spin on this classic exchange between nervous new employee Mary and her irascible boss, from ''[[The Mary Tyler Moore Show]]'' (''circa'' 1970):

'''Lou''': ...I ''hate'' spunk! }}

* An aversion of this was mentioned in [[Zero Punctuation]]: Everyone in Britain stops snickering at the name "Spotted Dick" by the time they turn twelve.

* [[ABC Family]] cut the song "Give Your Heart a Try" from the Rankin/Bass animated version of '''[[Twas the Night Before Christmas]]'' because of the use of the word "gay" in the lyrics.

* Topping the list of Things You Probably Shouldn't Say on [[Animated Series]] Anymore, from Ruby-Spears' ''[[Mega Man (animation)|Mega Man]]'':

** "Whatever turns you on, Doc..."

* Grandpa in ''[[The Boondocks]]'' isn't up to date with the lingo, and when he hears about the R. Kelly case, he comments [[Squick|"I wish someone gave me a golden shower"]] to the amusement of Riley.

* In the British cartoon ''[[King Arthur's Disasters]]'' Lancelot's catchphrase when something happens that he doesn't like is "Oh Blow!"

* The 1936 [[Felix the Cat]] cartoon "Bold King Cole" had Felix singing this lyric.

* Similar to the SpongeBob example, one of the lyrics in the song "What's This?" from ''[[The Nightmare Before Christmas]]'' has ''"In here, they've got a little tree! How queer!"''

** Justified in that they needed a word to rhyme with "here."

* In ''[[Beavis and Butthead]]'', Principal McVicker is exasperated that their teacher has given up on teaching them about [[The Gay Nineties]] because the term invokes this (and [[Verbal Tic|endless laughter]]) for the two boys.

* ''[[South Park]]'' [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this in their version of ''[[Great Expectations]]''.

* In ''[[Doug]]'', Roger Klotz says "Yeah, what do you know Skeet-face"

 

** [[Scrubs|"Why is your Lake Titicaca not filled with boobs and poop?"]]

** ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' did as well.

* This trope is [[Older Than Feudalism]]: the 1st century rhetorician Quintilian complains about people who giggle at phrases like "patrare bellum" (finish off = make orgasm, in the slang of Quintilian's era] the war/pretty boy). And apparently there was no reason to take Vergil's "incipiunt agitata tumescere" (stirred up, they begin to swell) with any other meaning, either...

* [[The Gay Nineties]].

* The most important street in downtown Knoxville Tennessee is Gay Street. The street ends in an ironwork bridge over 100 years old that is the Gay Street Bridge.

** Gay Street in Bath, Somerset, England, manages to take it even further. According to the [[wikipedia:Gay Street, Bath|article]] on [[That Other Wiki]]:

* There is a burger chain in California (and Arizona and Nevada now) called In-N-Out. While their burgers are almost universally loved and is considered a staple of Californian Culture, its name leads to snickers every now and then from those unfamiliar with it. (It was named that as the first In-N-Out was a drive-thru, which at the time was very unique.)

** In-N-Out's burgers are well known enough and liked enough to keep the name grandfathered for some time.

** Nowadays the term is "unisex".

* [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=bouncer Apparently], a 1883 London Times article had this little line describing the role of a [[Bouncer]]

* Various tv shows, movies, and animes up to around the mid 90's would sometimes refer to Condominiums as condoms for short... after a few decades of that I guess we realized what we were saying and started using 'condo' instead.

** If this usage had continued, it would have given the ''[[Doom]] 2'' level "Monster Condo" a whole new meaning.