History Main / GetTheeToANunnery

* [[http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/masters/punch/punchtoon18.jpg This cartoon]] refers to a play on words involving an antiquated use of the word "corporation" to mean "big belly." The same pun is made in ''Literature/TenSixtySixAndAllThat'', in which the Corporation Act passed under Charles II "said that everyone had to be as fat as possible."

** There's this (non-sexual) exchange from the [[Film/BackToTheFuture1 first movie]] that's puzzling to modern audiences. (Pepsi Free has long since been discontinued, so the fifties waiter's interpretation becomes younger viewers' as well. As for Tab, it still exists but is far less common — and many younger viewers might only know it from ''{{Webcomic/Homestuck}}''.)

* "An X walks into a bar" is currently a StockJoke. For a while, Website/{{Wikipedia}} listed a joke preserved on a Sumerian tablet from 1700 BCE as the first recorded bar joke, translated to "A dog entered into a tavern and said, 'I cannot see anything. I shall open this', or 'this one'". Then people who knew Sumerian pointed out that the word "éš-dam" rendered as "tavern" could also mean "brothel". Wikipedia [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_joke#First_recorded_example updated its entry]].

* "An X walks into a bar" is currently a StockJoke. For a while, Website/Wikipedia listed a joke preserved on a Sumerian tablet from 1700 BCE as the first recorded bar joke, translated to "A dog entered into a tavern and said, 'I cannot see anything. I shall open this', or 'this one'". Then people who knew Sumerian pointed out that the word ""éš-dam" rendered as "tavern" could also mean "brothel". Wikipedia [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_joke#First_recorded_example updated its entry]].

* In ''Theatre/AsYouLikeIt'', the clown Touchstone gives a speech which is mostly funny because Shakespeare expects "hour" and "whore" to be homophones. This is one of many small things put forward as evidence for the idea that Shakespeare's dialect of Early Modern English most closely resembled the [[OopNorth northern]] dialects of Modern English (in which "hour" and "whore" still aren't homophones, but are closer to being so than in [[Creator/TheBBC BBC]] English)--doubtless quite a shock for generations of RP-speaking Shakespearean actors.
* In ''Theatre/KingLear'' Edmund's line "Yours in the ranks of death!" is actually a Elizabethan era euphemism or pun for an orgasm or sex in general. "Die" was a common English euphemism for "orgasm" well into the 18th century, probably stemming from the French euphemism ''la petite mort'', "the little death." Shakespeare loved the phrase "I die in your lap"--he uses it in ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' and in ''Theatre/MuchAdoAboutNothing'', where Benedick tells Beatrice he "will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy sight."
* ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'':
** Juliet's impassioned speech to her mother, in which she uses many double meanings that can be taken to mean she hates Romeo (the way her mother takes it) but could also be taken to mean she's in love with him. In one part, Juliet states that her dearest desire is to "behold Romeo dead." She gives the speech after they're married. What do you think Juliet's ''really'' saying she wants in that speech?
** The line from Mercutio "O Romeo, that she were! Oh, that she were/An open arse, and thou a poperin pear". The "open arse" is a reference to the medlar fruit, but there is no such thing as a "poperin pear". Separate the syllables, though, and you get "pop 'er in", which means these lines are about... things to do with a lady's rear end.
* Shakespeare used the phrase "too much of a good thing" as a DoubleEntendre in ''As You Like It''. The original context was as follows:

* In Shakespeare's time, "thing" was a euphemism for a penis, and "nothing" or "no-thing" was also a euphemism for a vagina. Many plays make use of this term, often to pun or joke.

** When you hear the singer mentioning that looking into the young man's eyes reminds him of the encounter with that fair young maid, it may have seemed like an unnatural attraction to the morally conservative community, as compared to more recent years, now that more parts of the world are gradually granting legal recognition to the LGBTQ community. Folk singer Burl Ives, who claimed that his 1940's version dated back to the colonial days, was jailed in Mona, Utah for singing it in public, and the song was deemed indecent and bawdy for some time.
* Also related to meanings in living memory but no longer current" Music/SteelyDan's "The Fez" (off 1976's ''The Royal Scam'') is making fun of a guy who "won't do it without the fez on," the "fez" being 1970s slang for a condom.[[note]]Yes, there is some ValuesDissonance here; but you have to remember that in the 70s, (1) there was a wide array of easily-available, effective contraceptives (the pill, the IUD, the diaphragm...) and (2) so far as anyone knew, all [=STIs=] either were curable (antibiotic resistance wasn't on anyone's radar) or would not be prevented by condom use anyway, so insisting on a condom was seen as unhip and a mark that you didn't trust your partner. During this era, condoms were for one-night stands (because, you know, you can't necessarily trust whoever you met at the bar 100%) and horny teenagers (the more effective contraceptives requiring a gynecologist's prescription/fitting, which your average teenage girl couldn't get). HIV's appearance at the end of the decade changed all that in a hurry...[[/note]]

** Ezekiel 16:25, Ezekiel compares Jerusalem to a prostitute who spreads eagle to every man who walks by: ''"thou hast opened thy feet to every one that ped by, and multiplied thy whoredoms."'' In Biblical Hebrew, the same word is used for "feet" and "legs". That preserves the euphemism in modern language! Among popular Protestant translations, the NASB renders this "spread your legs," while the NIV and RSV have "offering your body" and "yourself," respectively. The Catholic NAB has "spreading your legs," and the Jerusalem Bible has "give your body"… "to every [[HaveAGayOldTime comer]]."

* Several eighteenth-century English {{Bawdy Song}}s are all about TheGrandHunt for the "coney," which dictionaries will tell you is an old word for rabbit. The alternate spelling "cunny" is still used today, though never in reference to rabbits.

** When you hear the singer mentioning that looking into the young man's eyes reminds him of the encounter with that fair young maid, it may have seemed like an unnatural attraction to the morally conservative community, as compared to more recent years, now that more parts of the world are gradually granting legal recongition to the LGBTQ community. Folk singer Burl Ives, who claimed that his 1940's version dated back to the colonial days, was jailed in Mona, Utah for singing it in public, and the song was deemed indecent and bawdy for some time.

** There's this (non-sexual) exchange from the [[Film/BackToTheFuture first movie]] that's puzzling to modern audiences. (Pepsi Free has long since been discontinued, so the fifties waiter's interpretation becomes younger viewers' as well. As for Tab, it still exists but is far less common — and many younger viewers might only know it from ''{{Webcomic/Homestuck}}''.)

''Nunnery'' meant a convent for nuns but was also used as an SexualEuphemism for brothel.[[note]]Because a common belief in Shakespeare's time and earlier was that, often, a nunnery convent ''would'' be pretty much a brothel in disguise, usually with the ''monks and priests'' taking sexual advantage of the women there.[[/note]] [[AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle Now you know]]. For situations about women actually entering a convent, see TakingTheVeil and/or LockedAwayInAMonastery. The inverse is HaveAGayOldTime, which are words that were originally not euphemistic. Subtrope of SexualEuphemism, which concerns currently used euphemisms for sex.