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missdaredevil
Joined: 08 Dec 2004
Posts: 1670
Location: Ask me
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 Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 10:55 pm Post subject: *entendre* |
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It has a love of double *entendre*.
Is that word commonly known?
I couldn't find it in my dictionary.
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LucentShade
Joined: 30 Dec 2003
Posts: 542
Location: Nebraska, USA
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| Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 11:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Entendre is a French/Latin loanword, and it's really only used in that particular expression. It means "understanding" or "meaning" (like the Spanish verb "entender"). People could probably recognize "entendre" if they know the expression, but probably wouldn't know how to pronounce it. |
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e123
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 7
Location: Cardiff, UK
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| Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 5:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| It has a love of double *entendre*. Is that word commonly known? I couldn't find it in my dictionary. |
Missdaredevil, the word is *double-entendre* (though it is often spelled with two words, ie double entendre). I think you will find this in most dictionaries. Look under D.
The Etymological Dictionary gives:
double-entendre
1673, from Fr. (where it was rare and is now obsolete), lit. "a twofold meaning," from entendre (now entente) "to hear, to understand, to mean."
Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary defines it as a word or expression capable of two interpretations with one usually risqu�. It gives two (American) audio pronunciations. One pronounces double in the conventional way (to rhyme with trouble) but pronounces the second word in the French way (on t on drer), but the other pronounces it as dooble on t on d (the re is silent).
In Britain it would be pronounced dooble on t on drer.
The use of double entendres is quite popular in America and in Britain. Double-entendres make use of words with double meanings. A review of the movie Million Dollar Baby, which portrayed the career of a female boxer, said, �Hilary Swank is a really beautiful broad, and wow, you should see her box.� This seeming innocuous sentence deliberately uses the double meaning of the word box, which in slang refers to the female sex organs.
The word p u s s y is often used in double entendres. P u s s y is another slang word for that particular part of a female anatomy. One of the earliest examples of this double entendre is quoted in Wikopedia. It says that in the late 19th-century there was a vaudeville act in America, the Barrison Sisters. While they danced, they would raise their skirts slightly and ask the audience: �Would you like to see my p u s s y?� After getting an enthusiastic response, they would lift up their skirts higher revealing live kittens fastened over their crotches.
There are several double entendres attributed to Mae West. �Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?� �A hard man is good to find.�
In the film Death on the Nile (I think it was in that movie. Please correct me if I am wrong) one of the characters tells a joke. The policewoman chased the burglar past the grocers, past the chemists, but she caught him by the cobblers. This makes a play on the word *cobblers* which means a shop where shoes are repaired. However, in C o c k n e y rhyming slang *cobblers* means b a l l s. So the word has a risqu� implication. |
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