Getting Crap Past the Radar/Literature

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Getting Crap Past the Radar in Literature include:

Strict No Gays policy? Huh?

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Books

  • The most noted example might be Animal Farm. Designed to be a criticism of Communism, it had great difficulty finding a publisher, largely because of fears it would undermine the World War II alliance between the US, UK, and Soviet Union. If it had been written "straight," it might not have been published; as an allegory about farm animals, it could slide by.
  • Where's Waldo?: Cartoonist Martin Handford hid his titular hero amongst massive (sometimes absurdly so) crowd scenes in which so many unusual events were taking place that you had to look carefully to make out the guy in the striped shirt and ski cap (which was the point of the book). Many of the events depicted were ridiculous or bizarre, and several of them were controversial inclusions for a book aimed at kids ages 6 to 14: a vacuum cleaner sucking a woman's dress off of her body, a man graphically vomiting, and another guy getting accidentally hit in the nuts. One of these sneaky scenes was so subtle that you might not even notice it: a boy at the beach teases a bikini-clad beauty by placing the cold end of his ice cream cone on her back, causing her to bolt up from a prone to a semi-prone position; unless you're looking closely, you might not notice that the girl has loosened her bikini top so as not to get tan lines while sunbathing, and she's about to expose her bare breasts to the world.
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has a wallpaper with lickable fruit. One of the fruit is a snozzberry, which Willy Wonka is evasive about. What is a snozzberry? According to Roald Dahl in My Uncle Oswald, a snozzberry is the glans of a penis. Go ahead and lick it!
    • This makes the episode of Robot Chicken where Grandpa Joe complains that 'this carrot tastes musky' and Willy Wonka chases the Oompa-Loompa away from the other side of the hole in the wall even funnier...
  • Inheritance Cycle: What about the elves' saturnalias? According to sDictionary.com, that translates pretty much to "unrestrained revelry; orgy."
    • In the classical sense of the word. "Orgy" meaning "lots and lots of sex all at once" is more modern. Back in the day, it just meant "big honkin' party."
    • In the second book of the series, the word "slattern" is used, and another time a character is talking about relationships between men and women and says or a man's "loins" can make even the most sensitive man a dribbling fool or sly fox. The word "Loins" means genitals. And don't forget the huge amount of alcohol use and references in the series, and there's even a scene with smoking of some kind of weed. It is stated in the series that the Eldunari don't have the "organs" necessary to reproduce.
  • Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift was written mainly with the goal of making up outrageous fantasy countries to satirize existing ones without getting reprimanded by the censors, the way he would if he criticized them directly. He tested exactly how much crap could get past by naming a country "Laputa". Basically, Spanish for "The Whore".
    • Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky just got a whole lot weirder for this troper.
      • In most of the world the movie is referred to as Laputa: Castle in the Sky, but in the United States, they changed the name for that very reason.
      • Hell, Miyazaki once noted that if he'd known what it meant, he would have used a different name.
    • Don't forget Gulliver peeing on the queen's castle.
    • Or dropping a deuce in the temple.
    • And the things the giant ladies did with Gulliver.
  • Mystery author Dashiell Hammett used to enjoy putting things in his books that sounded like they might be dirty, just to annoy his editor who would cut them out before the books were published. But his editor did not notice the word "gunsel" in The Maltese Falcon, so it was included in the published version. The editor thought the word meant a "gunman", and many American writers imitating Hammett use the word "gunsel" to mean "gunman". In fact, the word meant "homosexual lover".
    • "Gunsel" managed to survive in the 1941 film as well. Although Peter Lorre's character makes up for it with the perfumed white gloves.
      • Well, that and the strong implication in both novel and 1941 film that Peter Lorre's character Joel Cairo and the "gunsel," Wilmer, are having a homosexual affair. Also this line from the novel, about the gunsel: "The boy spoke two words, the first a short guttural verb, the second 'you.'"
    • Not literature, but relevant: Deadpool refers to himself as a "gunsel" multiple times in Joe Kelly's run--probably intentionally, and quite likely referencing this incident.
  • Terry Pratchett engages in this frequently but normally it's not so jarring as they are adult books. But there was a notable occurrence in The Wee Free Men, which is definitely a kids' book.

The Toad: Oh, croap!
Tiffany: Pardon?
The Toad: Er, that was, er, swearing in Toad.

    • Also later in the book the Toad says "shoap". And the Nac Mac Feegle's favourite: "Crivens!" As well as their "Pisht", which one of Tiffany's more "proper" witch teachers is assured means "tired".
      • That's possibly a play on "tired and emotional", libel-dodging journalese used (especially by Private Eye) for someone, usually a politician or celebrity, being drunk in public. This happens to Hacker in one episode of Yes Minister.
    • There's at least one instance of literal crap.: in Men at Arms Detritus the troll (who are made out of stone) uses "coprolith" (fossilised turd) instead.
      • And in the same book, Detritus also gives us "In Anhk-Morpork even der shit gets a street to itself. Truly dis is a land of opportunity."
    • There's also Lance-Constable Sally Von Humpeding's real name -- aside from the "von Humpeding" in the first place, her first name is "Salacia". There is no possible way that wasn't deliberate.
    • Outside of Discworld, Only You Can Save Mankind makes passing reference to Johnny's nickname being "Rubber". This looks like just a random bit of absurdism if you don't know what a "rubber johnny" is.
  • One of the characters in Stanley G. Weinbaum's 1934 classic A Martian Odyssey is named "Putz". He also ejaculates in one scene.
  • P. G. Wodehouse has something like this with the character Galahad in his Blandings Castle stories. It's very clear that Galahad had an adventurous youth but it isn't said explicitly that he was a Loveable Sex Maniac. However, this is strongly implied by comments that his name is ironic (Galahad is known for being a chaste knight -- see Monty Python and the Holy Grail), and by the way young female characters react to him.
  • During The Forties, writers for science fiction magazine Astounding made a game of getting dirty references past bluenose assistant editor Kay Tarrant. George O. Smith succeeded with a reference to a tomcat as "the original ball-bearing mousetrap".
  • Robert A. Heinlein's The Star Beast, written for what would now be called the young adult market, stars John Thomas Stuart XI, latest in a series of custodians of the titular alien pet. In the end, it is revealed that the pet is a) female, b) royalty, and c) considers the Stuart line to be her pets. Heinlein managed to get away with writing of Lummox's "hobby of raising John Thomases".
  • James Branch Cabell's Jurgen, a comedy of justice details a medieval character's multiple marriages, affairs, and a full-on Crowley "Gnostic Mass," complete with ritualized deflowering and child (no longer-) virgins. In 1919, and went on to defeat a number of public indecency lawsuits, proving that Cabell, like his Jurgen, was indeed a "monstrous clever fellow."
  • Damon Knight's short story Cabin Boy has the titular character "circumnavigating the skipper", referencing the bawdy shanty "The Good Ship Venus". At least one collection included the text of the shanty, assuming readers may not have heard it.
  • Machado de Assis and José de Alencar, the two Brazilian writers from the 19th century of most renown, are masters of this trope. They had to keep the obvious subtle to appease the prudish society of their century.
  • A Series of Unfortunate Events: You have to be really sharp to catch this one, but in Book the Fifth, the three siblings are forced to work as a secretary (Sunny) and study an impossibly vast amount of material for a test (Violet and Klaus). At one point while Sunny is frustrated with her work (making staples by hand), she says "Merd" as an exclamation of frustration. It's awfully close to "merde", which is French for excrement.
    • Sunny probably has quite a few of them. As Sunny is quite intelligent for a young child, it is often wondered if what she is saying is simply nonsense to her or if she is saying these things on purpose.
    • There's a chapter from one of the books (I believe it's the ninth one) that starts out with a discussion of French phrases. One of the phrases ol' Snicket gives as an example is "la petite mort" which he translates, quite literally, as "the feeling you have when a small part of you has died." He doesn't bother to give the more common usage of the term - slang for having an orgasm!
    • A later book quotes "Man hands on misery to man/it deepens like a coastal shelf/get out as early as you can/and don't have any kids yourself," from Philip Larkin's "This Be the Verse." The opening line of the full poem is "They fuck you up, your mum and dad." What was the target age group for these books again?
  • Warrior Cats has some pretty... questionable... moments:
    • Crowfeather deserves an award for achievement in implied sex. First, when he disappeared overnight with Feathertail, and they returned with their eyes "glimmering with satisfaction", and later when "There seemed to be some unspoken connection between them, and Stormfur had wondered what had happened while he had been held prisoner in the cave". And finally, with Leafpool: "They had been traveling all day even though neither of them had gotten any sleep the previous night". This becomes even more... questionable... since we now know that he got Leafpool pregnant during that period of time.
      • Not to mention in Bluestar's Prophecy: Bluestar and Oakheart are known to have kits. In the book, at the end of their ONLY night together, Oakheart suggested 'Let's build a nest'. Next thing you know, Bluestar's pregnant. Subtle, Erin, Subtle.
      • And the first volume of the Tigerstar and Sasha manga, where Tigerstar stays in Sasha's den one night, and later she's pregnant. Are the censors really unable to connect the dots?
    • Remarks made in Eclipse about Birchfall and Whitewing becoming closer leading to the nursery getting crowded, as well as pointing out that problems may arise from Honeyfern sharing a den with Berrynose. Questionable indeed.
    • The dream that Leafpool has about Crowfeather in Twilight. Questionable doesn't even begin to describe it.
      • And you can't forget how Kestrelpaw acted as though seeing Jaypaw in his dream was a regular occurrence...
    • The few times that male (and only male) characters have said to have their tails "shoot straight up" when faced with the object of their affection.
      • I'm pretty sure real cats do that.
    • Generally any potentially suggestive content operates on Parental Bonus: Most people under 13 would see some of the intimate scenes as kitties snuggling, whereas other readers might be in a different frame of mind.
    • This troper remembers an scene in Midnight where Brambleclaw thinks "He hoped that didn't mean Cloudtail and Brightheart wanted to go out alone." It turns out that Brackenfur had wanted Brambleclaw to join them on patrol, but it can still be taken the wrong way...
    • Spiderleg and Daisy. Two characters who barely speak to each other in canon suddenly have kits. Spiderleg still doesn't even look at Daisy much afterwards, and is really awkward around their kits. As if coming to this conclusion wasn't easy enough, Word of God has even confirmed that they did indeed have a one-night stand.
    • There are some pretty large age gaps between some of the Official Couples that people don't point out very often. Such as the fact that Spottedleaf's pseudo-relationship with Firestar in the first book would make her a pedophile, or the fact that everyone that has fallen in love with Squirrelflight is more than a year older than her (Brambleclaw received his warrior name before she was even conceived, for crying out loud!)
      • To be fair, Spottedleaf was described as being "young for a medicine cat", implying she was closer to Firestar's age.
      • Read Bluestar's prophecy it tells you that DARKSTRIPE is younger then Spottedleaf and that Willowpelt and Redtail are her siblings, so ya she is not as young as others claim.
      • Bluestar's Prophecy tops them with Pinestar and Leopardfoot. He was Clan leader before she was even born. The fact that Pinestar never really visits her, and that what he does later in the book seems to suggest he's more of a pleasure seeker than one for commitment makes the implications of this even worse.
    • In Bluestar's Prophecy: Stormtail and Dappletail become an Official Couple near the end of the book, long after Stormtail's first mate, Moonflower, has died. But, there is still a significant amount of interaction between them before Moonflower dies (most notably Stormtail fighting to protect Dappletail, but not even lifting a paw when Moonflower is killed), which, together with Stormtail generally ignoring Moonflower and their kits, seems to suggest that Stormtail was cheating on Moonflower.
    • In Bluestar's Prophecy, Snowfur says (about Thistleclaw) to Bluefur, "He makes me purr." Yeah, there's really only one way to take that.
    • "That's what he said!"
    • What about Jayfeather, and how he loves to touch the stick?
    • There is a scene in SkyClan's Destiny where Stick is looking for Red and sees what is described as "the larger figure bending over the smaller one." and thinks that someone is trying to kill Red. When he barges in, he learns it's not true, but considering the two cats involved are an Official Couple, it makes you wonder what he really walked in on.
      • And don't forget the very obvious allusions to Stick and Velvet's affair in the very same book.
    • In Crookedstar's Promise, after Crookedjaw is happy that he hadn't dreamed about Mapleshade:

Oakheart (to Crookedjaw): What are you so cheerful about? Have you been dreaming about Willowpaw?

      • And even earlier in the book, Crookedkit sees one of the RiverClan she-cats out at night with the WindClan deputy. He thinks that it's just a secret mission, but considering that she later has his kits...
  • The Star Wars Expanded Universe lives this trope. Here are some examples I can think of off the top of my head:
    • Back in the Marvel days, Leia tells Dani (a Zeltron and therefore Luke fangirl) something along the lines of "I didn't know what you do was illegal in that many systems." Yes, she basically calls Dani a whore.
    • Also from Marvel, when they visit Zeltros, Luke has a legion of fangirls, and in one scene a fanboy.
    • The X Wing Series. Stackpole became known as the "sex writer" for a long time. He hints quietly compared to more recent works, but brothels get mentioned, it's obvious that Erisi Dlarit wants to have sex with Corran, and there's a point where it's implied that people think three characters are a threesome.
    • Teneniel Djo declares Luke her slave in The Courtship of Princess Leia.
    • The title Emperor's Hand led to many a masturbation joke among fans, though I doubt that was Zahn's intention.
    • Numerous Does This Remind You of Anything? scenes.
    • Huttese pornography in Planet of Twilight.
    • The Black Fleet Crisis. Not only does Before the Storm have naked!Luke, but he has a one-night stand at the end of Shield of Lies, which lampshades Luke's role as Chick Magnet.
    • New Jedi Order: I distinctly remember one scene where Anakin poses as Mara's sex slave for a mission, and she notices a bulge in his pants, right below his belt. Mara concludes that it's a Stokhli stick. For those not familiar with the Expanded Universe, a Stokhli stick is a stick-shaped weapon that shoots goop all over its target. Worse yet, while this started as a joke, there actually are Anakin/Mara fanfics, including ones where Luke approves of their relationship.
    • "I hope he doesn't call you Master the way I call you Master." -Mara Jade Skywalker
    • Jacen on the cover of Destiny's Way.
    • Jacen naked and being tortured. Fetish Fuel or Nightmare Fuel, depending on your point of view.
    • Ben getting molested by Tahiri.
      • one line in that chapter where Ben gets molested is commonly thought to be silly, the "big, strong Jedi Knights" line. This troper interpreted it is something much, much squickier than a throwaway compliment: Tahiri would seem to be complementing Ben's...penile size. Suffice to say, I was about to retch when I made the connection.
    • I swear, honest to god, that Troy Denning keeps invoking this trope on purpose, trying to see how far he can go.
      • He's hinted to Three-Way Sex between Jaina, Zekk, and Jag at least twice now.
    • There's a lot in the Fate of the Jedi book series:
      • This series has a lot of Naughty Tentacles (ostensibly Combat Tentacles). Ben's love interest, the 16 year-old Vestara, get's heaved up in the air and repeatedly impaled by them. Later, there's an extended scene where tentacles immobilize her, and blind her, while she argues with Ben. The kicker, has to be what happens in Vortex , with a feminine Eldritch Abomination, who has tentacles instead of fingers. She grapples and suffocates Luke for a while. Then, another man suckles from her other set of tentacles like a hungry puppy... All but the first was written by Denning.
      • Speaking of Vestara, Luke tells Ben to be prepared for a betrayal when dealing with her, and to not anything that Luke wouldn't do. Vestara is a Sith. Mara Jane was a Sith when Luke met her.
      • Allison now has Luke talking about how well-muscled Ben is.
      • Christie Golden gives us this exchange:

Ben: "...I think I am in dire need of a sanisteam."
Vestara (grinning): "Yeah, I was going to say something."

    • EU isn't the only part. Revenge of the Sith novelization by Matthew Stover is full of them. The part where Obi-Wan wakes up hanging on Anakin's shoulder? Yeah, that more than suggests Ho Yay between them. And Artoo suggesting where Anakin could look for a datajack couldn't have been any more made of this trope.
  • Malcom Hulke's novelisation Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion of his television story "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" fairly obviously made the Anti-Villain Henchman to that story's main Anti-Villain into a gay man, which the original serial had (for fairly obvious reasons) not even implied. Pretty daring for a mid-1970s book intended for children. This reinforced an Aesop present in the original story but emphasized in the novelisation that the villains consisted of emotional cripples who wanted to Ret-Gone away the present world because they just didn't fit in with the current one. (Again, gay people found it harder to gain acceptance in those days.)
  • In Coraline, the Other Mother touches the heroine quite often. And in a way that the girl really hates. And the phrases "You know I love you..." and "Come out when you learned to be a loving daughter." Add in the premise - a girl neglected by parents finds some other people who give her much more "attention" in a way described above and has a hard time getting away. This all sounds more like Child abuse than a typical fantasy story. So we get a children's book that's a thinly-veiled story about child abuse.
  • In Ender's Game, the alien race is the Buggers. Accordingly, anyone who opposed the war (or was just acting like a jerk) would often get called a "Bugger Lover". This troper did not recognize the wordplay involved for quite some time (though subsequent editions have started to bowdlerize this).
    • Of course, this being said, Ender's Game was never intended to be a hit with gifted adolescents. That just sort of happened.
      • Kind of a Funny Aneurysm Moment in the wake of the author's recent outspoken political opinions, though.
        • Speaking of Card's homophobia, we also have boys kung fu fighting naked in the shower.
  • The How to Train Your Dragon series has got quite few things past the radar with Dragonese, which has included words like 'piss', a variation of 'crap', and 'cack'. In a series meant for children.
    • In the first book there is a picture of Gobber with a tattoo of a mermaid on his butt that's topless, complete with "details".
    • The Movie has a guy saying "about the size of that", which in the trailer makes it look like he's talking about his, ahem, "sword".
    • In the cartoon show, when Clogg's gushing about his new friend "Tibbar" - the heroic hare Ballaw in disguise - his crew give a very squicked-looking Aside Glance to the camera. Also, Clogg's threat that he will cut off Badrang's head and throw it in his face - technically possible...
    • In Martin the Warrior, when Martin is staying at Noonvale, Rose offers to show him his room, leading her mother to say: "No, I'll do it, you'll have him up all night talking." Talking? Really? (Well ...)
  • There's a surprising amount of this in Time Warp Trio.
    • In Viking It and Liking It, there's a bard named Bullshik.
      • In Da Wild, Da Crazy, Da Vinci, they say "crap" several times. Including a mention of Thomas Crapper.
  • There's a lot of this in Colin Thompson's "The Floods" books. A perfect example can be found in Prime Suspect, when Mordonna tells her husband that she could turn him into a girl "with a couple of spells and a pair of scissors." Ouch.
  • Robin Jarvis' The Dark Portal: Morgan makes a snarky comment to the old fortune-teller Madame Akkikuyu along the lines of "I knows wot you were afore you got too old'n'ugly."
  • Brisingr, the third book of the Inheritance Cycle, has a moment during one of the chapters from Saphira's POV. She tries to talk to Roran telepathically...

Saphira? he asked.
Do you know another such as me?
Of course not. You just surprised me. I am... ah, somewhat occupied at the moment.
She studied the color of his emotions, as well as those of Katrina, and was amused by her findings.

    • Cockblocked by a dragon. That's gotta suck.
      • Oh, don't worry, the fandom has long since corrected this little incident...
  • In the book Fudge-A-Mania Fudge mentions that he sleeps with his mother when he's afraid at night. Sounds innocent enough right? Well, he tells two elderly characters (who get married in the end) that they should sleep with each other followed by a "Fudge!" Late to the Punchline indeed!
  • Here's one that, in hindsight, I'm absolutely shocked got past the radar. It's in Marco and the Tiger, a book for young adult readers by John Foster, published in 1966! In the second to last chapter of the story (at which point many bored readers might not have been paying attention), a zookeeper at the Audubon Park Zoo in New Orleans tells the titular hero that he can't accept his pet tiger because he's not allowed to take in animals that haven't had background checks ever since a rogue gorilla "[busted] the Mayor....on the nozzle!" Given the angry way the zookeeper says the line, I'm pretty sure that "nozzle" there doesn't mean "nose."
  • In one Berenstain Bears book, where the boy gets lost at the mall, he gets to look in the lost and found. One of the items looks suspiciously like a condom.
  • In the children's book Mungo and the Picture Book Pirates, at one point Mungo is taken by surprise and exclaims "Oh, Christopher Columbus!"
  • The Last Hunt, fourth and possibly final book of The Unicorn Chronicles is rife with this sort of thing. After the first three, very tame books, Coville seems to have realised that many of the people who grew up with the series are now adults. The publisher, however, still prints it as a childrens' book, so lines like "'Wisdom be damned," seem out of place, as well as another about "'Because of the way you always won our pissing contests.'" In addition, there is a scene where the Hunters are lusting after a dancer "dressed in a gauzy costume that covered little more than necessary." And to top it off, there are implications of a possible romance with Lightfoot. Who, uh, happens to be her second cousin.
  • Douglas Richard Adams' Watership Down introduces words in the rabbit language, sometimes to express concepts that are only meaningful in their world (like tharn, a rabbit frozen in fear,) sometimes just to give an alien atmosphere. But it also allows Bigwig to tell his enemy "Eat shit!" in what was originally marketed as a children's book.
    • It's more subtle than that, because even this has a shade of lapine meaning. Rabbits normally do eat shit in the burrow, to recycle undigested cellulose: but what Bigwig says is "silflay hraka," literally "eat shit outdoors," which makes it insulting.
      • No, hraka is faecal matter, quite distinct from the partially-digested "pellets" which rabbits do indeed reprocess. Agreed, though, that "silflay hraka" does translate as "Go out and eat shit".
  • The success of this probably inspired Adams to use the same trick in his very adult fantasy novel Maia. In some amazingly pornographic scenes for a mass market paperback in the 1980s, he got away with explicit descriptions just by putting the sexual nouns and verbs in the Becklan language.
    • He may have been inspired by the 1970s translations of The Kama Sutra and The Perfumed Garden, which left the terms "yoni" and "lingam" untranslated so that the publishers could pretend there was some doubt about what was being described.
  • In one of the comic sections of Malice, the artist snuck in pictures of the body of a naked woman on top of the mort-beast, bare breasts with nipples and all. One wonders how nobody seems to have noticed this little fact, since the book is labeled and sold as a book for the 9-12 age range.
  • Stationery Voyagers has weak radar to begin with, but seems to know the outer limits even of its own system.
  • In The Message, Marco mentions having "weird dreams about that woman from Baywatch." Now what kind of dreams might those be...?
    • Also, in Book 14, wild horses act strangely. One woman in the area where this happens suggests that they may have been eating "loco weed"
      • Though this could be a case of reading too much into, since locoweed is an actual plant that livestock will eat that can cause irreversible neurological damage.
  • In the Star Trek Deep Space Nine Relaunch, Nog refers to another character as a "cold-hearted Moogi-jokk". Seeing as we know that "Moogi" means "mother", we can work out what he's saying.
  • Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself", in addition to openly discussing genitalia, has a scene where his soul gives him a blowjob.
  • Either Christopher Paolini is unaware of the meaning of such things as comparing the size of, ahem, "bruises" while your pants are down, noticing an elvish groin is hairless, and the like, or he's a master of Ho Yay.
  • In the children's book The Anti-Peggy Plot, where three kids attempt to sabotage the efforts of their soon-to-be Wicked Stepmother, they sneak into what they think is her apartment. It turns out that it's the wrong one, and they learn this when the couple who lives there comes in, the man saying "Damn, am I in the mood." It was a few years before this troper realized exactly what the man was in the mood for.
  • The Chronicles of Narnia has two examples:
    • In The Magician's Nephew, when Uncle Andrew calls Jadis a "dem fine woman", the author is using a Funetik Aksent to disguise the fact that he is calling her a damn fine woman.
    • In The Silver Chair, the author once again covers up a curse, this time with a curious contraction, in which Jill says something is "Dam' good of [Eustace]".
  • In The Amber Spyglass (controversial for its atheistic theme, but marketed as a children's book), when Mary is telling Lyra and Will about love, Lyra feels an interesting sensation...

"As Mary said that, Lyra felt something strange happen to her body. She found a stirring at the roots of her hair: she found herself breathing faster. She had never been on a roller-coaster, or anything like one, but if she had, she would have recognized the sensations in her breast: they were exciting and frightening at the same time, and she had not the slightest idea why. The sensation continued, and deepened, and changed, as more parts of her body found themselves affected too. She felt as if she had been handed the key to a great house she hadn't known was there, a house that was somehow inside her, and as she turned the key, deep in the darkness of the building she felt other doors opening too, and lights coming on. She sat trembling, hugging her knees, hardly daring to breathe, as Mary went on."

  • In Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Titan's Curse, there is a chapter called "I Have Dam Problem", which takes place at an actual dam. Hilariously enough, many of the characters in the chapter make jokes based on the word, "dam", much to Zoe Nightshade's confusion.
    • In Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Last Olympian, Percy mentions that a male and a female camper are not allowed to be alone in a cabin together. There's only one plausible reason for that.
      • In the previous book, Hera refers to Percy as "one of Posideon's... children". Percy comments that it's pretty obvious she had a different word in mind.
  • In The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio there is a surprisingly realistic description of human trafficking without quite describing what was intended for the heroine.

Short Stories

  • The Mark Twain story "The Story of Grandfather's Old Ram" features a narrator who gets so sidetracked he falls asleep before finishing his story. That's fortunate, because the story appears to be about how his grandfather was given the gift of unexpected sex when he bent down to pick up a coin.

Print Media

Steve Thomason: [With Sonic's new sword skills], he'd probably make a good guest fighter in the next Soul Calibur game. Hey, it'd be less absurd than Ivy's... um... "enhancements".

    • The purchase of the magazine by Future Publishing, in 2008, significantly toned down the radar, as they allow crude humor and sexual references in their magazines. One issue of PC Gamer even used a Precision F-Strike.
    • The issue with the large article on New Super Mario Bros. Wii included the line "Lemmy's bouncing balls won't hurt you, but they will push you away."
    • Even the old Nintendo Power comics had some there - you'll very clearly see that Fara Phoenix wears no undergarments under her pilot suit.[1]
  • This Korean children's book gets 1337 crap past the radar.
  • Someone at Reuters wasn't paying enough attention to the title of this July 2010 sports article: Tired Gay succumbs to Dix in 200 meters
  • In 2011 in Chicago when a blizzard stranded cars on Lake Shore Drive, the Chicago Tribune initially went with the headline, "Bad LSD trip: Who's to blame".
  • A 2012 column by New York Times conservative columnist Ross Douthat snuck this one in:

The promise of a Lincoln-Douglas-style showdown with the president has been one of Gingrich’s more effective rhetorical flourishes... [but] it’s hard to see how Gingrich’s Master Debater reputation recovers from his poor showings in the debates in Florida.

Textbooks

  • In the Campbell/Reese (6th Edition) Biology textbook, it describes a particular type of breeding, technically referred to as semelparity, from Latin roots. However, the first and easier to remember name it...big-bang reproduction. It gets better.
  • Many biology textbooks mention the four Fs of life: Feeding, Fighting, Fleeing and.... Mating.
  • The Cambridge Latin Course has its moments. Any language book that includes the line "ancilla dominum multum delectat" (the slave girl pleases the master very much) can't exactly claim innocence.
  1. ↑ that is, you see "Country Matters"
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