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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Double-Entendre Lyrics
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
Given Paul's language in some of the Epistles, can't see the issue with 'fuck' in church though perhaps not at a wedding with small children there.
Contemporary mores generally view the word "fuck" as unsuitable for polite company. Even many people who use the word as a part of their normal lexicon would be a little shocked to find it in church. It's probably best not to use language that some people will find offensive, even if you don't.
(And if you only ever have small children in your church for a wedding, I'm sorry...)
A further argument against was put to me by a former colleague who works at a sexual assault crisis centre-- she advises me that she has a few clients whose memories of assault experiences are triggered by the word's use (and I've seen this happen on one occasion). One hardly needs a chorister or member of the congregation breaking down and needing assistance.
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Knopwood
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# 11596
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Posted
Funny that this should come up: I was travelling out of province and attending Mass at a church where we sang "O praise the gracious power" from the 1998 Canadian Anglican hymnal. I did a bit of a double take at the stanza which begins, "O praise persistent truth / that opens fisted minds." The image, I assume, is of a mind closed like a balled-up fist, but apart from seeming forced it made for the giggles.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Knopwood:
Funny that this should come up: I was travelling out of province and attending Mass at a church where we sang "O praise the gracious power" from the 1998 Canadian Anglican hymnal. I did a bit of a double take at the stanza which begins, "O praise persistent truth / that opens fisted minds." The image, I assume, is of a mind closed like a balled-up fist, but apart from seeming forced it made for the giggles.
Tangent alert
I don't think that one's known over here, but is the command 'O praise persistent truth' reliably orthodox? Is it hypostasising an attribute of God's character and then inviting us to give it either doulia or hyperdoulia? Ot am I just being pedantic?
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
There are plenty of occasions where church shouldn't be polite, or should make people uncomfortable. I'm not saying this should be all the time, but it can be done effectively eg Tony Campolo. Surely there's a problem when church is too polite?
These are different things. I agree that church shouldn't be afraid to make people uncomfortable (it's counterproductive if that happens all the time, of course). I'm not familiar with Mr. Campolo.
But there's a difference between making people uncomfortable because you're confronting their prejudices or pushing them out of their nice sheltered existence and making them confront the reality of the lives of people living a few miles away, for example (which are both good and necessary) and making them uncomfortable because you're using coarse language, which is just unnecessary.
Better take that up with St Paul, then, since it's something he employs.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
Given Paul's language in some of the Epistles, can't see the issue with 'fuck' in church though perhaps not at a wedding with small children there.
Contemporary mores generally view the word "fuck" as unsuitable for polite company. Even many people who use the word as a part of their normal lexicon would be a little shocked to find it in church. It's probably best not to use language that some people will find offensive, even if you don't.
(And if you only ever have small children in your church for a wedding, I'm sorry...)
A further argument against was put to me by a former colleague who works at a sexual assault crisis centre-- she advises me that she has a few clients whose memories of assault experiences are triggered by the word's use (and I've seen this happen on one occasion). One hardly needs a chorister or member of the congregation breaking down and needing assistance.
I'm a survivor of sexual assault and that hadn't occured to me - but food for thought.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Leorning Cniht
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# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
Better take that up with St Paul, then, since it's something he employs.
Are you referring to his use of the word "σκύβαλα" in the epistle to the Philippians? (Most bible translations word this as "dung", "rubbish" etc., but "crap" or "shit" is probably closer to the right sense.)
The Apostle is clearly using the word for effect here. I'm not familiar enough with biblical Greek to have a good feel for exactly how unacceptable the word was in polite discourse.
Mores change. Perhaps this kind of language is becoming more acceptable again (a few hundred years ago, most of today's four-letter words would have been commonplace, and just for fun, I'll reference the splendidly-named Roger Fuckbythenavele
The word "shit" carries with it two kinds of disgust. It carries the disgust associated with the physical referent - actual human excrement, conjured up without euphemism, in its most blatant and real sense. It also carries with it the artificial disgust of the symbol, which is the thing governed by contemporary mores. The apostle clearly intends to invoke the former disgust, but it's not clear to me that he intends to invoke the latter.
The word "fuck" invokes powerful disgust in the latter sense, but none at all in the former sense. Certainly it carries slightly different overtones than some of its more polite synonyms, and I can think of plenty of contexts in which I would choose to use it for that reason; none of those contexts would involve the presence of my mother, or about 80% of my church congregation.
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Mores change.
Certainly do.
For example, in evangelical circles use of the word "crap" has become unexceptionable in the last couple of decades.
(If someone describes a prophetic scenario different from theirs as crap, is that scatological eschatology or eschatological scatology?)
Listening to my wife speaking in church recently, I was disconcerted when she described someone as being "up himself".
She did it naively, as she is not the sort of attention-seeker who likes epater les bourgeois, and was taken aback when I suggested to her later that it might possibly have caused offence, but in fact there was no feedback at all.
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Latchkey Kid
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# 12444
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Posted
In All Things Bright and Beautiful we have praise for "The Purple Headed Mountain."
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'You must never give way for an answer. An answer is always the stretch of road that's behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.'
Mika; in Hello? Is Anybody There?, Jostein Gaardner
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Bishops Finger
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# 5430
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Posted
Geoffrey Chaucer uses the word' shiten' to signify 'dirty', or possibly 'smeared with dung', in the 'Canterbury Tales'.
If it's good enough for Chaucer, it's good enough for me......
(What a truly wonderful language English is.....)
Ian J.
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
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georgiaboy
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# 11294
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Posted
A priest acquaintance not too long ago referred (in his sermon) to someone as a 'putz.'
I told him afterwards that my understanding was that was the Yiddish slang word for the male organ -- in other words, he had called someone a 'd*ck' from the pulpit.
He wasn't at all embarrassed, and said that he thought it meant 'jerk.' (And maybe it did)
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DangerousDeacon
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# 10582
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Posted
And of course, 'jerk' also has another meaning ...
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Lothlorien
Ship's Grandma
# 4927
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Posted
One son was commenting at the weekend about a brethren funeral he and his brother had attended on Friday.
Son said he was glad one of the hymns was not, " Up from the grave he arose, " as he would have giggled. It has been sung at brethren funerals down here.
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Bax
Shipmate
# 16572
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Posted
Verse 4 of "Now the Day is Over" is always good for a laugh:
Grant to little children
Visions bright of Thee;
Guard the sailors, tossing
On the deep blue sea
Oo-er missus etc etc
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by DangerousDeacon:
And of course, 'jerk' also has another meaning ...
Isn't it US for w**k? Has it got any other meaning? It's odd that I get the impression that it is more politely acceptable than w**ker - hence my asterisks -, even though it seems to have the same meaning.
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
I wouldn't bother asterisking wanker: I heard it used on a radio 4 afternoon play in the late 80s (admittedly to my surprise). But I don't think I'd use the word in church.
On a slight tangent, ISTR an American film from the late 80s called, I think, The Shag, which was about a competition in the dance of that name. It contained all sorts of splendid, to a British ear, conversations along the lines of 'Do you think Marybeth (or whatever) will shag with me in the contest tomorrow?' and 'I can't believe we're going to shag in front of the Governor'. ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
"Shag" was also a hairstyle and a type of carpet.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
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Matariki
Shipmate
# 14380
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Posted
I half remember a hymn from the old Methodist Hymn Book which had a line about "sailors tossing on the sea." It generated much smirking from us youth group members.
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georgiaboy
Shipmate
# 11294
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Posted
'jerk' does not, at least in most of the US, have the same implication as wanker. It's rather general meaning is a person who is (variously) rude, unthinking, ill-mannered, and other similar attributes in combination. (At least from my experience in the Midwest, and upper and lower south.)
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Knopwood
Shipmate
# 11596
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Posted
Yes, but in verb form, it can be a synonym for "to wank".
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
"Shag" was also a hairstyle and a type of carpet.
And the expression "Like a shag on a rock" is indicative of exposed isolation - as well as extremely uncomfortable bonking.
Another illustration of different usages in different cultures is the mirth with which Australians respond to Americans enthusiastically "rooting" for their sports teams.
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
Surely the shag on a rock was "the common cormorant or shag" -- a seabird -- once hymned by Hilaire Belloc or, possibly, Ogden Nash.
John
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Gill H
Shipmate
# 68
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
I wouldn't bother asterisking wanker: I heard it used on a radio 4 afternoon play in the late 80s (admittedly to my surprise). But I don't think I'd use the word in church.
On a slight tangent, ISTR an American film from the late 80s called, I think, The Shag, which was about a competition in the dance of that name. It contained all sorts of splendid, to a British ear, conversations along the lines of 'Do you think Marybeth (or whatever) will shag with me in the contest tomorrow?' and 'I can't believe we're going to shag in front of the Governor'.
Ah, memories of my first week at Uni, when the Christian Union all headed down to the Fresher's Week disco (yes, disco, that dates me!). One of the girls was a very sweet girl from Tennessee, who certainly wouldn't have taken part in any immoral goings-on. So it was rather disconcerting when she jumped onto the dance floor and shouted loudly "Say! Anybody here know how to shag?"
We did explain to her. Once we had regained the power of speech...
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- Lyda Rose
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Lothlorien
Ship's Grandma
# 4927
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Posted
A tangent somewhat similar: when I was doing Homiletics, we each had to preach to class.
One of the guys who knew his way around customs and language etc preached a pretty decent sermon.
One Nigerian girl, very strait laced, finished her critique with the words, "Well done. You can keep it up for me all night."
The whole class collapsed in long lasting laughter. Even the lecturer was doubled over laughing. The poor guy preaching was amazed. She had no idea what she had said.
Not so funny was later when I and another woman were asked to explain just what she had said.
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by John Holding:
Surely the shag on a rock was "the common cormorant or shag" -- a seabird -- once hymned by Hilaire Belloc or, possibly, Ogden Nash.
John
Precisely, hence the expression "like a shag on a rock", as in "He was left standing there like a shag on a rock", meaning isolated and exposed like a lone seabird on a storm-swept outcrop.
But hence, too, the ambiguity which people with a puerile sense of humour who think there is nothing as funny as a schoolboy double entendre (like me) are all too ready to exploit.
[ 29. September 2015, 09:56: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by georgiaboy:
'jerk' does not, at least in most of the US, have the same implication as wanker. It's rather general meaning is a person who is (variously) rude, unthinking, ill-mannered, and other similar attributes in combination.
'Jerk off' means 'wank', but 'jerk' by itself does not mean this in the US.
Moo
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by John Holding:
Surely the shag on a rock was "the common cormorant or shag" -- a seabird -- once hymned by Hilaire Belloc or, possibly, Ogden Nash.
Never heard the expression 'shag on the rock' and would advise against using it for the obvious reasons already aired. However, the poet was wrong. The Cormorant and the Shag are two different species. Neither lays its eggs in a paper bag.
I think the poet may have been Isherwood.
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Lothlorien
Ship's Grandma
# 4927
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Posted
I think it is taken from Psalm 102:6. Older translations used the word pelican but translation was changed as a pelican is a water bird,. Emphasis is on wilderness and solitude. It was a common phrase in prayer when I was in brethren, especially at morning meeting to describe Christ.
(Morning meeting =breaking of bread=communion)
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by John Holding:
Surely the shag on a rock was "the common cormorant or shag" -- a seabird -- once hymned by Hilaire Belloc or, possibly, Ogden Nash.
Never heard the expression 'shag on the rock' and would advise against using it for the obvious reasons already aired. However, the poet was wrong. The Cormorant and the Shag are two different species. Neither lays its eggs in a paper bag.
I think the poet may have been Isherwood.
It's a common saying here and no-one but no-one would think of any alternative uses of "shag" when using it.
You're right abut Isherwood being the author.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lothlorien:
I think it is taken from Psalm 102:6. Older translations used the word pelican but translation was changed as a pelican is a water bird,. Emphasis is on wilderness and solitude. It was a common phrase in prayer when I was in brethren, especially at morning meeting to describe Christ.
(Morning meeting =breaking of bread=communion)
?? ! A Shag is also a water bird, usually found only on sea coasts, unlike Cormorants which are found both on the sea and on lakes, rivers and reservoirs.
Both species, though, do perch on rocks and other things sticking up out of the water.
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Lothlorien
Ship's Grandma
# 4927
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Posted
While the phrase a shag on a rock is well known down here, I can remember only the translation of a pelican in Brethren prayers. I wondered at the revised translation too.
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Buy a bale. Help our Aussie rural communities and farmers. Another great cause needing support The High Country Patrol.
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earrings
Shipmate
# 13306
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Posted
Mr cheesy wrote
quote:
It took many years of practicing self control for me to sing hymns mentioning the human breast without a snigger.
I really have to try hard not to look at anyone otherwise I would still get uncontrollable giggles.
As someone who has recently had a mastectomy references to troubled breasts etc tend to raise giggles in me too. You have to laugh....
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My blog musings on all sorts of stuff https://priscillavicar.wordpress.com/
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
The good thing about worshipping alongside mostly old people in a church is that there's no sniggering about supposed 'double-entendre lyrics'. Maybe it's because they're not up to date with modern slang/colloquialisms. Or don't have such dirty minds, generally speaking.
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The good thing about worshipping alongside mostly old people in a church is that there's no sniggering about supposed 'double-entendre lyrics'. Maybe it's because they're not up to date with modern slang/colloquialisms. Or don't have such dirty minds, generally speaking.
I would regard that as a tragic side effect of aging. Your mileage clearly varies.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
The downside is when something tickles you (like "The Trump of God shall sound") you have a struggle to explain why you're in fits of giggles.
In the particular case above, it didn't help that my flatmate had commented just the previous day during a thunderstorm that God must have had a Dopiaza with tarka dhal and extra onions.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Well, I've often thought that the line about "Jesus taking the highest station" must refer to Snowdon Summit.
One hymn which is almost unsingable today is "I sing a song of the saints of God"; it has the lines: "And one was a doctor, and one was a queen, and one was a shepherdess on the green". Not least because the author was one Lesbia Scott.
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
The downside is when something tickles you (like "The Trump of God shall sound") you have a struggle to explain why you're in fits of giggles.
That makes you giggle??
I suppose I've always had an old head, so I appreciate not having to find this sort of thing hilarious. As I say, this is one of the good things about being part of a mostly elderly congregation.
These sorts of congregations are also less likely to sing dodgy, mirth-inducing worship music, of course. Traditional hymns have their strange turns of phrase, but familiarity must dull their comedic effect.
I don't know if anyone ever compares hymnbooks for this sort of thing, but the ones I've seen in use in the Methodist church over the past few decades have included a good number of 20th c. social justice type hymns. These tend not to have much humour in them, intended or otherwise.
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
No. Not many laughs in the two Freds (Kaan & Pratt Green).
One of the many reasons to loathe and detest the works of K*v*n bloody M*yh*w is that they bowdlerise things like 'heat was in the very sod' and 'at that stable rude and bare', which of course just solemnly recognises that they choirboys will snigger at them. Pillocks.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
No. Not many laughs in the two Freds (Kaan & Pratt Green).
...
Though having a hymn writer called Pratt is fairly funny, particularly bearing in mind that his hymns aren't very good - a bit ponderously earnest for my tastes.
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Barrel of fun compared to the other Fred! Actually FPG was not a bad poet in his way- Larkin chose one of his for his Oxford Book of C20 English Verse- and I've always wondered why his hymns were so duff. But this is straying into DH territory.
[ 30. September 2015, 16:25: Message edited by: Albertus ]
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
[I don't know if anyone ever compares hymnbooks for this sort of thing, but the ones I've seen in use in the Methodist church over the past few decades have included a good number of 20th c. social justice type hymns. These tend not to have much humour in them, intended or otherwise.
True of the URC, too. Some of them are not really singable, in my opinion. And, in any case, too many of them in one service tends to put a dampener on things.
While we're talking along this line, am I the only person to think that some of the Wild Goose words are too "heavy" r "wordily worthy" for the traditional Scottish tunes which are used to sing them? Of course, I'm a mere Sassenach ...
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georgiaboy
Shipmate
# 11294
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Posted
'I Sing a Song of the Saints of God' having been mentioned above. This Sunday School song -- I hesitate to call it a hymn -- has become firmly planted in many TEC parishes -- even to the point of being sung at EVERY funeral in a certain parish I won't name.
I nearly caused a choir riot in one church I served for refusing to program it on All Saints' Day.
The Lesbia Scott text is bad enough as it stands, but it has been subject to countless chorister naughtinesses, the most egregious probably being the substitution of 'and one was laid by a fierce wild priest' for the original 'and one was slain by a fierce wild beast.'
Plus the theology is dubious at best. IMNSHO - YMMV
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I've never met that hymn, but looked it up. It's dire. How about these un-immortal lines:-
"You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,
in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea;
for the saints of God are just folk like me,
and I mean to be one too."
There's no double entendre, but it definitely gets a pious pedestrian platitude award.
Georgiaboy, you did good.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
"And one was hanged, and one was shot,
And one was fried on a griddle hot;
And however they died, it hurt a lot,
And I want to be one too!"
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
Posts: 2512 | From: Oakland, CA | Registered: Feb 2008
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Oblatus
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# 6278
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by georgiaboy:
The Lesbia Scott text is bad enough as it stands, but it has been subject to countless chorister naughtinesses, the most egregious probably being the substitution of 'and one was laid by a fierce wild priest' for the original 'and one was slain by a fierce wild beast.'
Those who cheekily sing "...slain by a fierce wild priest" had better have also sung "And one was a beast," or I'm not impressed.
Posts: 3823 | Registered: May 2004
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Albertus
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# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I've never met that hymn, but looked it up. It's dire. How about these un-immortal lines:-
"You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,
in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea;
for the saints of God are just folk like me,
and I mean to be one too."
There's no double entendre, but it definitely gets a pious pedestrian platitude award.
Georgiaboy, you did good.
Pedestrian lines, but they express a certain truth that is sometimes forgotten and in stressing the banality (in a sense) of sanctity their own banality is perhaps not inappropriate.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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ExclamationMark
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# 14715
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Posted
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:[QB]
But there's a difference between making people uncomfortable because you're confronting their prejudices or pushing them out of their nice sheltered existence and making them confront the reality of the lives of people living a few miles away, for example (which are both good and necessary) and making them uncomfortable because you're using coarse language, which is just unnecessary. [/QUOTE] Coarse language to make a point is often counter productive - it puts people off listening. There are occasions when it's simply an excuse and where it says more about the speaker than the issue in question.
There are plenty of other ways of making a point that don't involve swearing - the Vicar of Dibley broke into real life to show a video of African children. That did way more for "Make Poverty History" with the cast having white ribbons on their arms, than swearing ever did or could.
besides which a lot of swearing sounds pretty laughable when delivered in plummy middle class tones: get the real deal on a building site, then you'll rally know the hostility and intent of the words.
If you use the words in everyday conversation, then why not in church? Ah, it's a choice and situational you say - well then, choose not to use that language anywhere.
[ 01. October 2015, 10:03: Message edited by: ExclamationMark ]
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Albertus
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# 13356
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Posted
Dead right, EM. Spot on.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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