a story composed entirely of innuendo?

[sanchopanza]

anyone ever tried that? i like messing around with extended euphemisms - little passages that sound filthy but actually refer to something quite innocent

 

[Guest]

anyone ever tried that? i like messing around with extended euphemisms - little passages that sound filthy but actually refer to something quite innocent

I also find that kind of thing pretty funny. I've never read any short stories, or books, written that way, but I have seen many, many Carry On films. They are comprised entirely of double entendres, and always make me larf!

Lou

 

[sanchopanza]

i'm not a fan of the carry on films but on paper it looks different - in the carry on's they reveal what it actually was they were talking about - they say nice melons when standing by a fruit stall - i'd like to see a story that doesn't show you what they are actually referring to but that you could work out yourself

 

[Vincent E]

Not innu ... innuen ... that word that you used, but I have a spoof of the British sitcom Grace and Favor, or Are you Being Served Again in the US, that relies heavily on double entendre.

 

[Jenny _S]

anyone ever tried that? i like messing around with extended euphemisms - little passages that sound filthy but actually refer to something quite innocent

This is an old comedy schtick dating back at least to Old Bill Sheakspear's Fallstaff. I could see using it in a story for one reason or another, but to base an entire story on it would be both tedious and would lose the affect intended.

 

[pop_54]

Yeppers

I have to agree with Jenny, it would need very careful thought to write an entire story based on innuendo alone, without the visual stimulation of the films or TV, or even the local pub, most of your innuendo is going to be lost.

Maybe a very short story with little or no narrative, mainly naughty talk in dialogue form as it were with just brief explanations, yes possibly.
But if you have to explain the joke, it won't be funny at all.

 

[sanchopanza]

hmm i was really only referring to very short stories - just wondered if it was possible. some girl was asking me about my porn so i ad libbed a great euphemism for her - about a pirate opening a treasure chest and even managed to work watersports in there.

 

[Uncle Meat]

hmm i was really only referring to very short stories - just wondered if it was possible. some girl was asking me about my porn so i ad libbed a great euphemism for her - about a pirate opening a treasure chest and even managed to work watersports in there.

As a very short story, it's certainly possible. It seems to me it would come across as little more than a gimmick -- which is not a reason not to do it. It just means it'll get tiresome very easily if you don't keep it short and sweet.

 

[MathGirl]

Originally posted by Uncle Meat it'll get tiresome very easily if you don't keep it short and sweet.

"I kiked down the dor and did somthing unmentioneable upon her smilling countennance."
MG

 

[oggbashan]

As a very short story, it's certainly possible. It seems to me it would come across as little more than a gimmick -- which is not a reason not to do it. It just means it'll get tiresome very easily if you don't keep it short and sweet.

This is true of many bright ideas for a new twist. I've tried alliteration, rhyming couplets (for a story, not as poetry), writing from odd points of view such as the cat, and worst of all a whole story of zeugma based on a plot which was a zeugma e.g "He came to her call and all over her breasts".

All have been scrapped because they are gimmicks that don't work and don't help tell the story. Reading them aloud once was enough.

Og

 

[Colleen Thomas]

You might be able to work a short story based around a scenario where both partners were in a formal seting, i.e. an office or at work. Keeping all the conversation on the saucy side, but also innocent enough for those around them to assume it was just a normal call. You would have to be careful to keep each partner's side of the dialogue intelligible to those around them as a call about something other than sex.

I think for it to be meaningful though you would have to carry the story to them getting home that evening, putting the kiddies to bed and doinging it like bunnies.

-Colly

 

[RenzaJones]

I would actually depend on the innuendo being used. Once I invited a friend up to my apartment for a nightcap. He apparently thought that "do you want a drink" meant "do you want to shag on my sofa" I went into the kitchen to fix said drinks and he made himself comfortable. By comfortable i mean he had his bare ass on the cushions of my brand new couch when i came back. Much to his chagrin we didn't shag. Of course everytime I get a chance I tease him about that night. Not being an american from the get go, I didn't realize why he would think that until later.

 

[Uncle Meat]

I would actually depend on the innuendo being used. Once I invited a friend up to my apartment for a nightcap. He apparently thought that "do you want a drink" meant "do you want to shag on my sofa" I went into the kitchen to fix said drinks and he made himself comfortable. By comfortable i mean he had his bare ass on the cushions of my brand new couch when i came back. Much to his chagrin we didn't shag. Of course everytime I get a chance I tease him about that night. Not being an american from the get go, I didn't realize why he would think that until later.

One of the very first things I learned about dating, long before I ever actually dated, was never to get undressed before the girl does.

 

[Uther_Pendragon]

I've seen a couple of short-shorts like that.
"What it was was football" Something similar involving
bridge: "tricks" and "jumping."
There was a story on alt.sex.stories some years back which
gave a dialogue of a man pulling a woman's tooth which
sounded a *lot* like deflowering a virgin.
Somewhat similar, but in the opposite direction is
"She Being Brand New," by e. e. cummings.
Not the whole story, but the guy who wrote *The Maltese Falcon* got mad at his
editor's cutting something from an earlier book. So, in
TMF, he put two comments. One had one villain admitting to
another that he was doing "the bedsheet lay." So the editor
cut that obvious reference to sex; except that "the
bedsheet lay" was a petty-theft scheme where you steal the
sheets from a clotesline. In the other, he had the hero
say that one subvillain was "the gunsel" of the chief
villain. Since it was about guns, the editor left it in;
but "gunsel" was Yiddish slang for a boy who was used
homosexually by a man. (It's a German word which means
"gosling.")

 

[DarlingNikki]

There is a paragraph in Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days that describes a game of whist and sounded absolutely filthy to my twelve-year-old ears. A bunch of stuff about partners and tricks and pulling off the rubber, or something like that. I remember hanging out at my mother's job (the local gay/lesbian monthly paper) and showing it to her and having her show it around to all her coworkers who got a good laugh out of it. Will have to dig it up and see if it still sounds the same.

 

[wornoutkeyboard]

I actually...

Play with this quite a bit, as I write satire. I once (for a class) wrote an entire poem entitled "What I Did Last Saturday Night" that actually detailed the (rather boring) events of the previous saturday night, but all in innuendo that made it sound like our time was particularly fun *wink*.

For example, we played pool so some of the verses went sometthing to the effect of:

"Nikki ran her fingers over the fuzzy surface
As Beau was busy with his stick and balls."

And we ate KFC:

"And Beau turned to Nikki and asked:
Breast, Leg or Thigh"


Of course the real poem was far funnier than those lines, but it has been over 10 years and I don't zactly have it memorized...but u get the point.

Anyhoo... as a poem it was quite well recieved and even made it into the Southwestern Collegate Journal of Satire and Parody (a regional university publication).

So, I'm not 100% sure it would be great as a short story. But I believe that if you "have the stuff".... you could pull it off.

Just keep in mind... what seems like innuendo to you, may not exactly come off as innuendo to others.

Best of luck...let us know how it comes out.

~WOK