Have a Gay Old Time: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|"[A]''nd "cock" is not dirty all the time, that's one of those words that's only partly filthy. Cock, if you're talking about the animal, it's perfectly all right! They used to read that to us from [[The Bible]] in third grade; and we would laugh... [[Heh Heh, You Said "X"|"cock" is in the Bible]]!''|'''[[George Carlin]]'''}}
A cross between [[Accidental Innuendo]] and [[Unusual Euphemism]]. This trope occurs when "language drift"
Even very slight changes in usage can produce this effect; until recently, a man might speak of his attraction to a "young girl" and mean a twentysomething. Nowadays she'd be young, or a girl, [[Paedo Hunt|but not both.]] And sometimes the expression ''still'' has an innocent meaning that is at least as valid as the naughty one, but now [[Freud Was Right|there are just too many people with their minds in the gutter]].
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Compare with [[Hilarious in Hindsight]], of which this is arguably a [[Sub-Trope]]. See also [[Double Entendre]] or [[Intentionally Awkward Title]] for when this trope is invoked entirely intentionally, [[Separated by a Common Language]] for the spatial analogue, and [[Get Thee to a Nunnery]] for the reverse process.
Keep in mind that some of these words actually ''did'' have their modern meaning at the time they were used, but [[Genius Bonus|only within certain sections of the populace]]. The meaning of the word "gay" began to change as early as ''1870'' among the criminal classes of New York, where it originally meant "prostitute" (yes, before [[The Gay Nineties]]); around 1900 the meaning changed to "homosexual prostitute" and within five years of that to simply "homosexual". This means that in some cases the writers are using the words deliberately in order to [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|get crap past the radar]].
Some of these examples result from the ''euphemism treadmill'', whereby terms are repeatedly replaced as the previous word falls into such a state of misuse that it cannot be recovered. The words "idiot", "moron", and "imbecile" started as clinical terms, referring to people with IQ's below 75, 50, and 25, respectively. As these terms fell into common use as insults, they were replaced by a kinder and gentler term: retarded. Nowadays, retarded is considered so virulent that [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112479383&ps=cprs some people want it classified as hate speech]. The term used to describe people with life-changing diseases or injuries followed a similar path, from "crippled" to "disabled" to "handicapped" to "physically challenged"; when terms like "handi-capable" and "differently abled" were proposed, it came across as [[Political Correctness Gone Mad]] and people generally agreed to stop messing with it.
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* The ''[[Billy Bunter]]'' example (under Literature, below), is parodied shamelessly in a story from the old ''Brain Damage'' comic where girls are allowed into the world of Boys' School stories and are being very assertive. Poor old Cherry just has time to ejaculate "Hello, hello, hello," cheerily when he's shot dead by a girl with a cry of "He'll not ejaculate cheerily again, I'll wager!"
* In the 1950s, "boner" was just a slang term for mistake (e.g., the Merkle Boner in baseball). So it didn't raise anyone's eyebrows when a [[Batman]] story had the Joker [http://dialbforblog.com/archives/136/ start a crime wave based on "boners."] The result was dialogue like "Laugh at my boner, will they? I'll show them! I'll show them how many boners the Joker can make!", "This emphasis on boners has given me an idea for a new adventure in crime!" and "I'm worried about the boner he's readying for you!" The Joker takes inspiration from [http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2005/02/jokers-massive-boner.html a picture that "shows a big boner of modern vintage!"] And to top it all off, the cover portrays the Joker as a '''giant totem pole'''. Not surprisingly, this story became an [[Memetic Mutation|internet meme]]. It was also drawn by [[wikipedia:Dick Sprang|Dick Sprang]].
** This example also shows up in a contemporary ''[[Spider-Man]]''
** And because it seems there's not a single word on this page that hasn't appeared in at least one vintage ''[[Batman]]'' comic, here is: [http://www.superdickery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1292:qremember-this-leather-thong-it-still-has-your-teeth-marks-in-itq&catid=32:seduction-index&Itemid=36 Batman's leather thong] .
** In one comic, Batman is carrying Robin out of a hospital, saying "I've got news for you, Robin! Wait till you hear what Gordon has up his sleeve" and Robin is thinking "Batman's doing his best to sound gay. But I can tell his heart isn't in it!"
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* "Making violent love" once referred to nothing more "violent" than an overly emotional courtship, and was often used to describe a man ardently proposing marriage. Hence the scene in ''[[It's a Wonderful Life]]'': "He's making violent love to me, mother!"
* The [[Marx Brothers]]:
** ''[[Horsefeathers]]''
** ''[[A Day at the Races]]'' has Groucho telling the female lead that "For you, I'd [[Interspecies Romance|make love to a crocodile]]." <ref>At the time this movie was made (1937) ''make love'' was ''also'' being used in its modern, physical, sense — and Groucho was not shy about his language.</ref>
* The 1939 Fleischer cartoon ''Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp'' had [[Popeye]] utter this immortal line to Olive Oyl: "I don't know what to say... I've never made love in Technicolor before!" Definitely ''not'' something you could say in a cartoon in ''this'' day and age...
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** This one is expecially amusing once you know that the use of the word "gay" to mean "homosexual" originated in theatrical slang well before it migrated to the mainstream vernacular
* In ''[[Blast from the Past]]'', Dave Foley's character tells Brendan Fraser's he's gay. Having been in a bunker for thirty-five years, Brendan thinks he means happy.
* The title song of ''[[Forty Second Street]]'' refers to girls from "the fifties" and "the eighties"
* In the musical ''[[Oliver!]]'' there is a song called "Who will buy" sporting the line "I'm so high, I swear I could fly." (He's just happy.)
* Classic Kung Fu movie ''Dirty Ho''. Yeah.
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'''Children''': *laughter*
'''Manny''': See, that's why I called it a burro! }}
* The Beatles movie ''[[Yellow Submarine]]'' features a character named Jeremy Hilary Boob, Ph.D.
* In the 1959 film ''The Hanging Tree'', a trio of amateur prospectors discover a huge deposit of gold beneath a tree stump, a sort of shallow mineral-rich trench or pit known as a...glory hole. Following which event we are treated to the scene of these people running back to town screaming "It's a glory hole!" over and over, and thousands of townsfolk swarming into the streets in a rapturous riot at the news.
** There was a night club called the Glory Hole in Indianapolis in the 1960s.
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* "Ejaculate" for "exclaim" is used completely straight in the [[Hardy Boys]] and [[Nancy Drew]] series.
** The very first Hardy Boys book in the very first series was and is also rather educational: it tells us how "passing the queers" at that time was slang for fobbing off counterfeit money (hence the expression still used in some places today, "queer as a three dollar bill").
* This kind of usage is parodied to hell and back in Mabel Maney's ''[[Nancy Clue]]/Hardly Boys''
* The authors of the disaster novel farce ''Earthdoom!'' would've been well aware of what they were doing when they made a race of slimeball aliens that communicated by encoding messages in emitted liquid, then used "ejaculate" as one of the tags for their speech.
* "Ejaculate" for "exclaim" does appear in some modern books...such as ''[[Harry Potter]],'' in which Ron and Slughorn both ejaculate their dialogue occasionally. To be fair, Ron is a teenage boy. [[Squick|We're not sure about Slughorn.]]
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* A particularly unfortunate example from [[H. G. Wells]] ''[[The War of the Worlds]]'': "His landlady came to the door, loosely wrapped in dressing-gown and shawl; her husband followed ejaculating."
* Often occurs in the ''[[Billy Bunter]]'' books, as in "'Hello, hello, hello,' ejaculated Bob Cherry cheerfully."
** A less common example that might have modern readers looking up etymology is when the school's lone American student proclaims himself and other boys to be 'cute'
* Parodied in lists of Appropriate Alternatives to "said", as in '"You're supposed to sprinkle sand on the roads when it's icy, you fool!" he gritted.' '"Oh my god I was so frightened when the geyser erupted," she gushed.' And obviously, '"I'm having an orgasm!" he ejaculated.'
* 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."
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** The use of that word to represent the naughty bits was around back then (Shakespeare used it in such a manner, in fact). Of course, the translators of the KJV were more frumpy fuddy-duddies than ol' Bill, one would expect.
** Acts 21:30 -- "The whole city was aroused"
* It was still possible to use 'pussy' as an innocent descriptive term in English literature until fairly late into the twentieth century. It gets bandied about a lot in [[Agatha Christie]]'s [[Miss Marple]]
** As the [[wikipedia:Barrison Sisters|Barrison Sisters]] show, pussy meant all kinds of risqué things by the end of the ''19th'' century.
** Christie had lots of gay young people running around, and many people strike the main characters as queer.
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** 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.
{{quote|Are you down with the M.P., then? Doing the gay boy on the beach?}}
* The characters in [[Damon Runyon]]'s stories refer to their "straight monikers"
* 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''.
* There is a ''[[Biggles]]'' book called ''Biggles Takes It Rough''. It is about a hard journey across rough country, of course.
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** The hero of the original novel ''[[The Blue Lagoon]]'' was called Dick. Needless to say, he was renamed Michael in the 1949 film and Richard in the 1980 film.
* Apuleius' ''The Golden Ass'' is about a donkey, of course. It's probably best referred to as ''Metamorphoses,'' though.
* In [[Jane Austen]]'s ''[[Mansfield Park]]'', the heroine's name is Fanny Price. 'Fanny' once a very common name in the
** Fanny gets "knocked up" in that book, and "intercourse" passes between the inhabitants of Mansfield and the Parsonage.
** Henry Crawford also asks himself, of Fanny, "Is she queer?" In context, he's wondering why she isn't attracted to him.
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** It helps if you remember that "douche" simply means "shower" in French, which used to be a common language for English speakers to borrow from. (The Spanish cognate, by the way, is ''ducha''.) Hey, at least Bradbury didn't write "golden douche."
* [[Welkin Weasels]], a children's book series, runs into this. The story is about the weasels trying to find humans to repair the sea walls before the land of Welkin floods. The sea walls are persistently referred to as "dykes". Perfectly correct, but not used with that particular meaning very much these days ...
** 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]]
* This happens about 3 times in the course of two pages in the [[Mary Shelley]] novel ''[[Frankenstein (novel)|Frankenstein]]''.
{{quote|'''Victor Frankenstein''': We returned to our college on Sunday afternoon: the peasants were dancing, and every one we met appeared to be gay
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** And a third example, recalling the Poe one above, is when Wolfe declares "I will not be diddled!" in the episode/short story "Before I Die."
** And many were the occasions when Archie "got erect" rather than just standing up.
* Although ''[[Daisy Miller]]'' contains plenty of intentional [[Double Entendre
{{quote|"He wondered what were the regular conditions and limitations of one's intercourse with a pretty American flirt. It presently became apparent that he was on the way to learn."}}
* 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.
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* This one isn't dirty so much as it's just odd, but ''[[Anna Karenina]]'''s description of one of the characters "making his toilet" may count.
** The outdatedness of that expression was taken advantage of in an early [[Stephen Fry]] monologue, where in the midst of a [[Hurricane of Puns]] the narrator "made [his] toilet, sat on it and then went down to breakfast."
** And in ''[[Anna Karenina]]'', [[Shown Their Work|page 87 in my printing]], Anna says something or other with a "gay twinkle". This after a paragraph on the preceding page about how Kitty [[Les Yay|is in love with Anna]] in the way girls sometimes are with [[
** Better yet, there's also this gem: "as if tears were the necessary lubricant without which mutual intercourse between the [[Incest Subtext|two sisters]] could not work successfully."
* Some English translations of chapter 17 of Carlo Collodi's ''The Adventures of [[Pinocchio]]'' have this. One describes the title character as "running and rushing about the room as gay and as lively as a young cock." [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Pinocchio/Chapter_17 Another] has "him run and jump around the room gay as a bird on wing."
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* Not really an example, but hard to explain otherwise: John Irving's very long novel ''[[A Prayer for Owen Meany]]'' (the book on which the movie ''Simon Birch'' was rather loosely based) has the narrator, Johnny, relating many anecdotes unrelated to the main plot, such as how a girl named Hester he and his friends used to play with grew up to become a shock rocker named "Hester the Molester." (Johnny's a fan of hers, and has some of her albums.) Hester obviously meant "molester" in the current, kinky sense instead of simply "one who bothers people" - but considering that she and Johnny were born in the 1940s, grew up during [[The Fifties]], and came of age in [[The Sixties]], it's unclear how she would have picked up on the modern definition.
** It's a pun on the old Hustler comic "Chester the Molester", in which the title character molests both women and prepubescent girls. The comic debuted in 1975 but the phrase might be earlier.
* The 1933 novel ''Better Angel'' is about a young man coming to terms with his
* In one of the 2010 reissues of ''[[The Baby Sitters Club]]'' series, the term "thongs" was changed to "flip-flops" in order to curb some odd imagery for those who associate thongs with something else.
* In ''Up The Down Staircase'', Sylvia is warned never to give a lesson on "lie and lay" and not to teach the poem that begins "There is no frigate like a book". Sylvia says if she teaches that poem she'll substitute the word "steamship".
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*** It makes you wonder why they chose that name, considering the most common nickname for Richard is "Dick..."
* In ''[[The Honeymooners]]'', Norton, trying to get Ralph to do the Hucklebuck to prove to Alice that he can be young, urges him to "get in the groove and be gay!"
* This is one of the jokes that occurs [[Once an Episode]] on ''[[Are You Being Served?|Are You Being Served]]'': Mrs Slocombe uses "pussy" to refer exclusively to a
** David Baddiel did a routine about ''Grace and Favour'' (the short-lived 1990s ''AYBS'' revival), and how younger people, who only think that "pussy" means "vagina", wouldn't understand the innuendo, and would think that the show was "incredibly rude".; (ringing up the BBC to complain); "Excuse me, but Molly Sugden has just appeared on my TV and said that her gash is dripping!"
* In the 1966 ''[[Doctor Who]]'' story ''The Macra Terror'', the Doctor's reaction to what we later learn is a mind-controlled [[Stepford Smiler]] colony is "Well this ''is'' gay!" The best part is his tone could just be stretched to mean gay as the high school synonym for "lame". Not to mention the more obvious meaning.
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* Nowadays, [[Johann Sebastian Bach|Bach's]] ''Air on the G String'' conjures up some interesting images for some.
* [[The Hollies]], in the early [[The Sixties|1960s]], recorded a song called "Keep Off That Friend Of Mine" the chorus of which includes the lines "Now she's turned her head away/She's lost her smile/She's not so gay". Nowadays, the last line is often [[Affectionate Parody|parodied]] "...I think she's gay".
* Vancouver-based Spirit of the West (compare them with [[Great Big Sea]]) used this phrase verbatim in the song "The Crawl" (a song about a [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|pub crawl]]): "Well we planned to
* Inversion: Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers' "I'm Straight", about the advantages of not doing drugs.
** As does Ian Dury's "I Want To Be Straight", although it's deliberate. It even uses "bent" to mean "addicted to drugs". Ian was bisexual, thus he deliberately phrased this song in such a way that could be about either homosexuality or drug use.
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"Yig now he makes things impossibly ''queer...''" }}
* The classic standard "Am I Blue?" includes the line, ''Was I gay, until today...''
* [[Johnny Cash]]'s ''Jackson'', about a bickering couple who want to break up and intend to go to the town of Jackson to celebrate their new-found unattachment, contains a verse where Cash promises to "snowball Jackson". Presumably he means that he intends to roll right over it, like a snowball rolling down a hill gathering snow and speed as it goes, rather than the modern, [[
** "Snowball" could also mean to con everybody, play them for suckers, like a snow job.
* Clive Richarson's composition [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrHoKfVHsC8 "Gay Activity"]. Used, among other things, in ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]''.
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== Radio ==
* In one ''[[Bob and Ray]]''
** Then there's the incident from a 1949 show in which a station staffer walks in with some junk he wants the guys to try and sell for him on-air. "Ooh, a vibrator!" Ray exclaims with what can only be described as childlike eagerness. "I'd love to have one!" Turns out it's a barbershop gadget for foaming up shaving cream, but for a second there...
* 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:
{{quote|'''Bob LeMond:''' "Yes, it's the
** One episode featured Liz and her friend hiring a flirtatious French tutor. Her friend's husband described the first encounter like so:
{{quote|"As soon as he entered the door, he began making ''violent'' love to my wife."}}
* 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
** This is entirely aside from the fact that, post - [[Village People]], two young men spending an evening together swimming and dining at the Y carries [[Ho Yay|rather different connotations.]]
* Discussed in an episode of ''[[I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue]]''. Humph mentions his time at Eton, and Barry innocently asks "Were you a [[wikipedia:Fagging|fag]]?" Humph replied "I was Lord Carrington's fag. I mentioned this to an interviewer...American television, coast-to-coast...and the late Liberace was on the phone before I'd left the studio."
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== Tabletop Games ==
Happens with frequency in grandfathered intra-system game terminology, especially now that several systems are more than three decades old.
* The card game ''[[Illuminati]]'' uses Straight to mean ''normal, everyday, ordinary'', i.e. the opposite of ''Weird''.<ref>itself, meaning ''strange'' or ''bizarre'', not necessarily ''supernatural'' or ''magical''.</ref>
* The term ''Ego'' was less strongly associated with an ''overdeveloped sense of self'' when it became a stat in [[Champions]]. The numerical characteristic (or ''CHA'') has more to do with [[Heroic Spirit|willpower]] than either ''pride'' or the Freudian combined conscience of the ''id'' and ''superego''.
* The classic board game ''Cape Horn'' is absolutely '''full''' of this. As [[Jeepers Media|Mike Mozart]] pointed out, it's a game where you play as a crew of ''seamen'' collecting ''windcocks'' to sail around ''Cape Horn'' <ref>try saying it out loud</ref> and get to ''San Francisco''. Prepare for a lot of [[Heh Heh, You Said "X"]] if you try to play it with someone particularly immature.
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* One of the several drinking songs in ''The Student Prince'' had a chorus starting, "Come, boys, let's all be gay, boys."
* In ''Pal Joey'', just before the [[Dream Ballet]], Joey envisions himself becoming "the gay Joey." This has no connection to an earlier moment demonstrating that Joey likes to chase boys as well as skirts.
* Gaylord Ravenal in ''[[Show Boat]]'' is a [[Meaningful Name]]
* In the original ''[[Cyrano De Bergerac]]'', after Cyrano has successfully negotiated Christian into Roxanne's room, the play notes "They begin to make love." Now, it is not clear what was meant by that in 1897, but in the movie, they are clearly making out like teenagers.
* Eleanor Farjeon (best known as the composer of "Morning Has Broken") says she was five when she saw a play called "The Babes", a parody of [[Babes In The Wood]]. She remembers a group of soldiers singing ''"We are Gay Volunteers! How we splash! How we dash!"'', apparently in reference to their fancy uniforms and not to the fact that Bertie, the heroic Captain of the Volunteers, was played by Miss Grace Huntley.
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{{quote|"It's such a lovely day today. Let's go to the Zoo!" exclaimed a vaguely aroused Carren.
"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]]
** While maybe it doesn't quite fit this trope, "Romantic evenings with candles" also brings [[Cargo Ship|certain images to mind]].
* [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.
{{quote|'''Lou''': You've got spunk...
'''Mary''': Wh- why, thank you.
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*** Later on, Smithers is set on fire, and runs by Mr. Burns, who is watering the lawn. Screaming, "Help me, Mr. Burns! I'm ''flaming!''". Cue an [[Aside Glance]] that ''shatters'' the [[Fourth Wall]].
*** Burns (to Homer): "You're much more fun than Smithers. He doesn't even know the meaning of the word 'gay'!" (cue [[Gilligan Cut]] that demonstrates that, yeah, he kinda does).
*** The season 22 episode "Flaming Moe" turns this up to eleven; one of Smithers' "friends" comments upon meeting Burns that he didn't know Smithers was into "lemon parties"
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpqBsU1JeE0 "Individually, we are weak like a single twig; but as a bundle, we form a mighty faggot!"] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yZYJSy3N6A Subtitles: "Faggot: A bunch of sticks used for fuel."]
** Then there's also Kent Brockman thanking New Springfield for making them rich "From now on, we'll be taking golden showers!" Which is followed by off-screen laughter from the crew as Brockman asks "What?!"
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* Remember the 'making love' explanation earlier? Does explain how [[Looney Tunes|Pepe Le Pew]] got away with saying he'd love to do this all night and all day with an obviously non-consenting non-skunk he happened to grab without everyone and their senator screaming to bleach out the soundtrack.
* Speaking of the changing meaning of 'making love', a ''[[Jem]]'' song ("Who Is He Kissing?") featured the line "who is he kissing/is it me?/or is he making love to a fantasy?"
* A ''[[Fractured Fairy Tale
* 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.
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== Real Life ==
* The planet [[Uranus Is Showing]] has quite a bad reputation. True statements like, "Uranus is big and blue." "Uranus is full of gas." "Uranus is so big, it has its own gravitational pull" don't help matters at all.
** It's actually supposed to be pronounced "YOOR-uh-nus," which isn't much better, considering what it sounds like.<ref>"urine us"</ref>
*** [[Freakazoid|That's Uranus!!]]
*** [[Mass Effect|Probing Uranus]]
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** Let's not forget [[Silence of the Lambs|that one guy...]]
* The Swedes and the Norwegians use 'mus' (mouse) for the same purpose we use 'pussy'. Sadly the word for the device attached to your computer is exactly the same.
* A 1920s magazine article about teens getting caught up in jazz/flapper culture suggested that a concerned father should "Make love to your daughter if necessary!"
* [[wikipedia:Blue-footed booby|Boobies!]] Tell me they would have named them that if they had been discovered recently...
** As pointed out by ''[[The Far Side]]'' and its cartoon on unfair animal names. The guy named Clarence was probably supposed to be the punchline, but...
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* "Slut" used to mean a slob, usually a female slob. "Slut's wool" meant dustbunnies.
* This is probably why careless mistakes in baseball are now called bone''head'' plays.
* Biographies of baby saint Jacinta Marto can come off a bit [[Squick
** "Daddy, why can't I say short prayers like Mummy and the gardener do?"
* Gaylord is still the name of a popular hotel chain in the U.S. South. They even sponsored a college football bowl game for awhile.
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* In the (German) opera Lohengrin, the title character insists upon being called the Leader rather than the Duke of Brabant. In the opera itself, the word Führer was originally used for "Leader" in performances. This was changed to Schützer for reasons that [[Adolf Hitler|should be obvious...]]
* The [[wikipedia:Enola Gay|Enola Gay]], anyone? Its payload was code-named [[wikipedia:Little Boy|Little Boy]], which isn't an example by itself, but juxtaposed with the craft's name...
* In order to receive their certificates, student pilots must pass exams both in the aircraft and on the ground. The ground portion is naturally called the Oral Exam. This is usually shortened to just "oral" and applied to any verbal instruction. The term has persisted
* There is (was?) a plastic toy company called "Gay Toys, Inc."
* For any Americans coming to Australia, be warned: down here, a thong is a type of footwear, not a revealing pair of typically female undergarments. So don't get too excited if you're at the beach and hear someone talking about two hot chicks in rubber thongs.
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