Double entendre

[4] According to the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, the expression comes from the rare and obsolete French expression, which literally meant "double meaning" and was used in the senses of "double understanding" or "ambiguity" but acquired its current suggestive twist in English after being first used in 1673 by John Dryden.

[6] A person who is unfamiliar with the hidden or alternative meaning of a sentence may fail to detect its innuendos, aside from observing that others find it humorous for no apparent reason.

Some of these employ double entendres, such as Riddle 25: I am a wondrous creature: to women a thing of joyful expectation, to close-lying companions serviceable.

The title of Sir Thomas More's 1516 fictional work Utopia is a double entendre because of the pun between two Greek-derived words that would have identical pronunciation.

Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night says of Sir Andrew's hair, that "it hangs like flax on a distaff; and I hope to see a housewife take thee between her legs and spin it off"; the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet says that her husband had told Juliet when she was learning to walk that "Yea, dost thou fall upon thy face?

Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;" or is told the time by Mercutio: "for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon;" and in Hamlet, Hamlet publicly torments Ophelia with a series of sexual puns, including "country matters" (similar to "cunt").

[12][13] In the UK, starting in the 19th century, Victorian morality disallowed sexual innuendo in the theatre as being unpleasant, particularly for the ladies in the audience.

Spike Milligan, writer of The Goon Show, remarked that a lot of "blue" (i.e. sexual) innuendo came from servicemen's jokes, which most of the cast understood (they all had been soldiers) and many of the audience understood, but which passed over the heads of most of the Senior BBC producers and directors, most of whom were "Officer class.

"[15] In 1968, the office of the Lord Chamberlain ceased to have responsibility for censoring live entertainment, after the Theatres Act 1968.

By the 1970s, innuendo had become widely used across much of the British broadcast media, including sitcoms and radio comedy, such as I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

For example, in the 1970s TV comedy series Are You Being Served?, Mrs. Slocombe frequently referred to her pet cat as her "pussy," apparently unaware of how easily her statement could be misinterpreted, such as "It's a wonder I'm here at all, you know.

[16] Modern comedies, such as the US version of The Office, often do not hide the addition of sexual innuendos into the script; for example, main character Michael Scott often deploys the phrase "that's what she said" after another character's innocent statement, to turn it retroactively into a sexual pun.

[18][19] Double entendres are popular in modern movies, as a way to conceal adult humour in a work aimed at general audiences.

There is a long tradition of double entendre songs in American blues music of the 1920s and 1930s, called hokum.

Double entendres are very common in the titles and lyrics of pop songs, such as "If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me" by The Bellamy Brothers.