Posted by Dave Thewlis on August 03, 1998 at 03:38:10:
In Reply to: Titty...and other double entendres... posted by Julien Foster on August 02, 1998 at 16:15:25:
And how many were double entendres when S&A was written?
In any case, I think you're reading too much into innocence. Slang, especially of this kind, tends
to usurp existing terms and delights in giving them new, raunchy meanings over which those
in the know can exchange winks, especially if they are mid-teenagers; I suspect this has always been
the case. But whether these names were burdened in 1929 or not, trying to find names with no possible
double meaning might have been (had it occurred to AR) not only ridiculous, but giving up the
very child aspect of the books. Mostly I doubt AR wasted time fretting on the subject even if he
thought of it, and if the issue was there to be thought of -- I bet he would have assumed (probably correctly)
that his target audience wouldn't notice the double meanings or be aware of them.