Saturday 9 April 2016

What's in a name?

In British slang "willy" means penis. Thus when a cutesy American movie about a killer whale arrived here people found the inadvertent double entendres hilarious. People went to the cinemas in droves to laugh at the accidentally hilarious film.

With that in mind consider the new Imperium fleet doctrine: Snatch Fleet.

And then remember what "snatch" means in British slang (NSFW).

8 comments:

  1. I did wonder if it was deliberate or not, but either way, it's a pretty interesting.

    I also got called a spy, which is new. Obviously my allegiance to Herr Mittens is unshakable, and there's no reason for the DigiGestapo to think otherwise, right?

    *tugs at collar*

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  2. In British slang pretty much every word is a synonym for a private body part, a beer or a cigarette. If marketers worried about it, all things would be named after something wholesome and harmless: Queen. Oh wait.

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  3. As a Brit, I always thought "snatch" with the meaning you're alluding to was an Americanism. I don't think I heard the secondary meaning until the 1980s.

    It seems odd that The Archers would have a character called Snatch Foster if the first thing people thought was...well, you get my drift, and when I was young the newsreaders always seemed to be referring to "snatch and grab" raids when talking about Post Offices or building societies getting done over.

    I guess I could google for the etymology but I don't think I will.

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    1. It's 'Smash and Grab', as I recall.

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    2. Good grief! Of course it is! Semantic senility creeping in. Bang goes that argument then.

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  4. Well, first off, "snatch" means the same in US slang, so there isn't any "OMG, you don't know Brits do you?" aspect to it. (Likewise "Willy" if we get down to it, and we made the same jokes I am sure.) Also, it isn't like "Gay," as an example, where the slang meaning has completely eclipsed any other definition in the OED.

    Second, The Imperium has a doctrine called "Fuck You Fleet," so I suspect that nobody gave "snatch" a second thought even if the slang use was the intended meaning.

    Third, The Initiative, for whom this is a doctrine (not The Imperium) are Russians. So who knows what the hell it really means.

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    1. Malcanis offered me a vouch when I suggested the word "twatapults" so yes, it's correct to say INIT are down with this meaning.

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