Double Entendre – Examples, PDF

A double entendre is a literary device that may be used by authors to make their readers laugh or provide some lightheartedness. They might make use of terms or phrases having meanings that they do not explain directly but that they leave their readers to determine on their own.

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What Is a Double Entendre?

A phrase or remark is said to have double entendre if it may be interpreted in two different ways, one of which is meant to be taken literally and the other of which is meant to be understood literally but in an unpleasant manner. By employing witty wordplay, phrases, synonyms, homophones, or words that sound very similar to one another, a writer may choose to leave it up to the reader to decipher a statement that has more than one meaning.

How to use Double Entendre

The use of double entendres is a literary method that, depending on the context, may either advance the plot of the tale, provide an air of mystery to the writing, or enhance the text’s humorous value. In some situations, the second meaning of a double entendre is conveyed as an inference via the use of a figure of speech. This kind of figure of speech is known as a “double entendre.”

Step 1: Use wordplay

A deeper inspection of a double entendre often reveals a racy undercurrent. As a kind of wordplay, they may help you create a lighthearted or cheeky mood in your work. Some common forms of the figure of speech like metaphors, metonymies, synecdoches, similes, and even rhetorical questions are also typically used by authors to employ double entendre.

Step 2: Make it funny

Double entendre is most common in comedy shows to add humor to characterization. As Marge was preparing to board a ship to Skull Island in an episode of The Simpsons, Smithers used the homophone for “seminal fluid” to say, “I think women and seamen don’t mix.”

Step 3: Write something that sounds inappropriate but really isn’t

One of the connotations is often obscene or otherwise inappropriate. In Finding Nemo, Dory orders the other character  “Ok, everyone, think dirty thoughts!” The denotation is thoughts that will in the sense make the tank literally dirty, but adult viewers will understand that the term can also refer to inappropriate ideas.

Step 4: Follow up with something that’ll remove the otherwise inappropriate impression

“Your melons sound fantastic, and I’d want to see them.” You can then follow this up with a sentence right after like “David said to the fruit and vegetable merchant.”

FAQs

Movie and television makers often employ double entendres to amuse both children (who do not understand the second reference, which may be sexual or tawdry) and adults (who do understand the second reference of the script) (who do get the second reference). It is an efficient strategy for increasing the number of people who watch their shows.