back to article IT jargon is absolutely REAMED with sexual double-entendres

My wife is looking at online porn again. This can happen accidentally to anyone from time to time, usually while reading through the results of perfectly innocent web searches such as oyster bar or prize giving head boy. But here my wife is scrolling through pictures of men being er... “serviced” from behind by women wearing …

  1. Pen-y-gors

    We love Muffin,

    Muffin the Mule..

    [an activity banned in most of the EU]

    1. Fair Dinkum

      Re: We love Muffin,

      Darn Seppos,

      No, twas new to me too,

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Everything is an innuendo

    The problem is that people aren't willing to discuss sex openly so instead they hijack acceptable terms and turn them into sexual talk, ruining great works of literature for generations to follow who cannot avoid smirking every time Watson ejaculates at Holmes.

    1. Chris 69

      Re: Everything is an innuendo

      Lemonentry my dear Watson!

      1. Bloakey1

        Re: Everything is an innuendo

        Alimentary dear Watson.

        I need to watch it here! In Fez on great naughty / un Islamic filter.

        I once heard a joke referring to chap who was murdered in Stockwell and the punch line was Brazilian. Imagine my 11 year old daughter's surprise when I asked her what it meant.

    2. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Everything is an innuendo

      And yet it was Watson who moved out of Baker Street and got married. I surmise that Holmes never outgrew the innocent follies of youth.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Everything is an innuendo

        First time I've heard it called that.

        (We're discussing his cocaine habit, yeah?)

        1. bonkers

          Re: Everything is an innuendo

          Even innuendo is an innuendo, to an Italian.

          How can I put this...? Innuendo?

      2. Spoonsinger

        Re: "And yet it was Watson who moved out of Baker Street and got married"

        Mrs Hudson, reading between the lines, was on tap, and rather sympathetic to the two "bachelors" living together, up to the point of Watson's deviance to marriage. A very modern women, looking back, on all accounts, (although in a long term perspective, just a normal women).

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Everything is an innuendo

      "ruining great works of literature"

      Great works of literature <snork> Ooh naughty, naughty!

  3. Doctor_Wibble
    Headmaster

    Pegging order?

    My assumption* here is of a reference to the up-and-coming junior manager's incorrect quoting of 'pecking order' due to never having been down on the farm...

    * this word being the subject of the only Samuel L Jackson quote that doesn't include the word that is often written as 'melonfarmer'. But not the Frank and Ernest one.

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Re: Pegging order?

      Hard to say.

      On the Wikipedia page for it says: "Advice columnist Dan Savage wrote that he believes all men should try pegging at least once, as it may introduce them to a new enjoyable sexual activity and illuminate them to the receiver's perspective in sex"

      So far I have not has such an 'illuminating' experience, but I'm not sure if that is something to be happy or sad about.

      1. Doctor_Wibble

        Re: Pegging order?

        In no particular order, and very much rhetorical...

        - There's a wikipedia page on it?

        - Someone went and looked it up?

        - Who the fck is Dan Savage and why is his column so worthy of inspection?

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: Pegging order?

          >Who the fck is Dan Savage and why is his column so worthy of inspection?

          The gentleman in question is an amusing disclaimer of straightforward, honest, factual, helpful, and somewhat frank advice on matters of an anatomical nature for discerning gentlemen in a number of non-Murdoch periodicals on the West Coast of his Majesty's former colony.

          Imagine Marjorie Proops written by Joe Orton

          1. Allan George Dyer
            Paris Hilton

            Re: Pegging order?

            Marjorie Proops is another euphemism, like Joe Orton, right?

      2. Alistair Dabbs

        Re: Pegging order?

        >> illuminate them to the receiver's perspective

        The receiver? Illuminate? Are we talking about a light-up telephone here?

        1. Doctor_Wibble

          Re: Pegging order?

          >> Are we talking about a light-up telephone here?

          Presumably from one of those hospital 'removal' anecdotes...

    2. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Pegging order?

      Pecking, exactly. Is 'pecking' another sexual euphemism?

      1. chivo243 Silver badge

        Re: Pegging order?

        you would think someone working for a place with a vulture as their mascot would enjoy the joke of pecking order...

      2. Glenturret Single Malt

        Re: Pegging order?

        Alistair: Keep your pecker up!

  4. Paul Crawford Silver badge
    Coat

    Skiing

    Perhaps all those women were also aware that "skiing" is yet another sexual practice and you attempt to excuse your poorly judged vocal ejaculations simply slipped you deeper in to bad boy territory.

    OK, I think its time I got my coat...the one with Rodger's Profanasauris in the pocket, thanks...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    Pecking order

    Not pegging order. Otherwise very chortlesome thank you. But with a bitter twist - brings back all too many memories of incidents of social inadequacy, such as telling a joke to my parents then finding out the next day what it meant. Oh, and - quelle horreur - doing the same with not just my girlfriend, but my girlfriend with half a dozen of her friends. <shudder>

  6. Chris 69

    Not exactly an innuendo..

    But I do recall a very successful, high price, international product (still in use today) that in the early 80's accidentally shipped with an error message saying "Type the fucking date you twat!"

  7. chuckufarley Silver badge

    It's not as bad as...

    ...it used to be. I am sure I am not the only grey bearded gamer who laughed when Logitech's owner's manual instructed us to "Firmly plug the Logitech Thrustmaster Joystick into the SCSI port" on our PCs. Nod nod, wink wink. Know what I mean, Eh?

    1. Anomalous Cowturd
      Happy

      SCSI port...

      Was one of my ex's nickname for her down-belows.

      It was the only Out Of Hours support that I actually enjoyed doing...

      1. Phil W

        Re: SCSI port...

        "Was one of my ex's nickname for her down-belows."

        Was it Ultra Wide?

        1. The First Dave

          Re: SCSI port...

          Was it self-terminating, or did you need a dongle?

          1. Alistair Dabbs

            Re: SCSI port...

            My worry is that she may have been saying "scuzzy", which gives the expression an entirely different emphasis.

            1. imanidiot Silver badge

              Re: SCSI port...

              Damn you all for making my coworkers think I've lost my marbles. They're all looking at me weirdly (more than usual anyway)...

              Servers me right for reading a Dabs article on monday, at work, I guess.

    2. Dave Bell

      Re: It's not as bad as...

      I'm not sure they were Logitech, and they didn't use SCSI, so I think you misremember.

      But "Plug your Thrustmaster joystick into the game port at the back of the PC" is plausible, and more than bad enough.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's not as bad as...

      What about the Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar?

    4. SoaG

      Re: It's not as bad as...

      Still in business:

      http://www.thrustmaster.com

  8. sorry, what?
    Devil

    emacs and a bit of binary file editing

    A Unix expert colleague was irritated by one of our other team members who was evangelizing about how much better emacs was than vi, back in the day. To exact revenge, when the emacs user went to lunch leaving his workstation unguarded my colleague hacked the start-up emacs buffer name from "Scratch" to "Snatch".

    Later that day the emacs user noticed this and made an exclamation, turning a nice pink shade. He dug through the source code and found the correct name still there. Muttering to himself he started recompiling the tool. At the same time my colleague remotely accessed his workstation and, with expert timing, managed to repeat the binary edit on the executable to change the name again. You can see what happened after. The same process followed several times.

    Oh how we laughed later when the evangelist had gone home feeling confused and with his faith in open source compilers quite shaken.

  9. TheLonelySea
    Coat

    Easily done by mistake

    I'm as a big a fan of Benny Hill as the next man, but my best effort was asking a lady at work if her In Box was ready...

    I was going to send her a large attachment... (and that sounded dirty as well)

    1. glen waverley
      Coat

      Re: Easily done by mistake

      Many years ago, before electronic submission of quotes and the like, some readers may recall the days when companies bidding for government work used to have to be physically deliver their bids in written form on paper * by a specified time.

      The usual method was that a large wooden receptacle was placed in a place near the public door to the relevant Department. Normally where the receptionist sat. And thus the young lady would have a large sign on her desk pointing to the Tender Box.

      *it wasnt called hard copy then. As the concept of soft copy hadnt been invented back then**

      ** hard. Tee hee. Soft. Ha ha.

      1. Pen-y-gors

        Re: Easily done by mistake

        Re: paper tenders

        It's not changed - I still sometimes get asked to provide 3 printed copies of a tender - plus an electronic copy as well! (Could be worse, they might ask for three electronic copies...)

    2. Bloakey1

      Re: Easily done by mistake

      I once asked a Scottish lady admin who was on the phone;

      How big is your cache?

      Embarrassed silence for minute and she said about normal!

      I said what would that be in kilobytes?

      She said, could you repeat the question?

      When I did she said sorry, I thought you said how big is your gash!

      I still tremble at the thought.

      1. Sir Runcible Spoon

        Re: Easily done by mistake

        "How big is your cache/gash?"

        And she answered you!? What kind of helpline did she think she'd called?

        1. JEDIDIAH
          Facepalm

          Re: Easily done by mistake

          I once thought a London cabbie was asking me if I had "faulty pee".

          Two nations separated by a common language...

  10. thomas k.

    Thanks a lot!

    I'll never think of Simon Pegg in quite the same way again.

  11. photobod

    Not wishing to be pedantic

    But since others already have been, I'll just point out that a blind spot on one's retina is a feature, not a bug. It's the point where the optic nerve exits the eyeball on it's way to the brain, and hence devoid of sensory cells. So oddly enough, without a blind spot, you would not be able to see at all.

    1. Stoneshop
      Holmes

      Re: Not wishing to be pedantic

      Octopi can see all the same without a blind spot, so I would indeed call ours a bug.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Not wishing to be pedantic

        The designer put the retina in backwards so the interface cable is in the middle of the screen - then did a software patch so nobody would notice. Typical weekend bodge job really.

        1. Denarius
          Meh

          Re: Not wishing to be pedantic

          @yaac. Old view from vested interests. Designer has it right way round, otherwise humans would have a lot of internal reflection issues. Secondly, given we only have enough video CPU capacity to process about 5% in HD ITIRC, with the rest in (ahem) VGA quality, the design is quite efficient, stable and economical.

      2. MJI Silver badge

        Re: Not wishing to be pedantic

        Don't knock our eyes, we have a better blood supply,and more protection.

  12. ukgnome

    Thanks Weekend Edition

    I have just had to explain to Mrs Gnome why I was laughing. I tried to explain that's Dabbsy used to be a Friday thing but he now lives in my pocket at the weekend. She had a read and then declared, is it everyone it IT that's like this?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Re: Thanks Weekend Edition

      You did respond "usually," right?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Blind Spot...

    Actually, if you have two functional perfectly normal eyes, then you do indeed have two Blind Spots - not that i'm disputing it's a metaphor - but if we are going for accuracy then I feel it needed stating.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_spot_(vision)

    ;-)

  14. John Miles

    re: Blind spot is another metaphor, by the way: there is nothing functionally awry with my retinas.

    There is a blind spot in the human eye - optic nerve passes through the optic disc

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: re: Blind spot is another metaphor

      Love the pedantry and all that, but I am compelled to retort. I said that my use of the expression "blind spot" in its context was a metaphor AND that my retinas were OK. I never wrote that my retinas lacked actual, non-metaphoric blind spots.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Let us not forget about terms like

    Floppy, and in some places, stiffy.

    I'll just leave this here.

  16. Kingston Black
    Coffee/keyboard

    Once upon a time

    On one contract many moons ago, I had a young, female, attractive, Namibian student on an international exchange scheme working for me. One day she comes up to my desk and says "Can you give me a stiffy please?". It was at the time 3.5" floppy disks were all the rage. Apparently 5" disks are floppy...

    Icon - that's what happened to the bloke sat at the next desk.

    1. Anonymous Dutch Coward

      Re: Once upon a time

      And the stiffy is apparently still up (oops) and about: I gather it now denotes a USB stick... which probably leads to a lot of possible innuendo I'm not capable of due to caffeine deprivation...

    2. Pedigree-Pete

      Re: Once upon a time

      Back in the mists of time there were 8" floppies too. (Ooooh! Matron).

      1. Sir Runcible Spoon

        Re: Once upon a time

        Back in the days of routing storms, one loud voiced fellow was heard to say (addressing the entire support team and several other depts. in the open plan office)..

        "They got HUGE flaps in the States".

        How ya doin' Sam? ;)

  17. OzBob

    Pegging is also called "Reverse A"

    and usually costs an extra 20 quid (wear and tear, and cleaning I suppose). Oh, and when a hooker talks about A levels and O levels, they are not qualifications.

    1. EssEll

      Re: Pegging is also called "Reverse A"

      I beg to differ. A-levels and O-levels are most definitely qualifications and, like a lot of other qualifications, earn the recipient extra cash throughout their working life.

  18. glen waverley
    Paris Hilton

    humdinger ?

    "Intrigued by the possible etymology of the American expression humdinger, she read in a dictionary of slang that it was a contraction of humming and dinger. This led to the discovery that humming too has an unrelated sexual connotation. "

    And once upon a time in (parts of) the counterweight continent "dinger" also had a sexual connotation.

    As Dabbsy really ought to be aware of, given that his column (fnarr fnarr) is called Something for the weekend.

    1. Gene Cash Silver badge

      Re: humdinger ?

      Ahem.

      http://partiallyclips.com/2004/09/02/man-in-hat/

  19. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Not surprising with those company names

      So is a raspberry-pie something I should (or shouldn't) know about ?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        So is a raspberry-pie something I should (or shouldn't) know about ?

        Shouldn't*

        *I kinda regret looking that up for you! and the paranoid part of me thinks you may have laid set this trap deliberately.

        Not that if it happened I would think it was a big deal but that description and the fact it has that name... Mind bleach please...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: So is a raspberry-pie something I should (or shouldn't) know about ?

          ...and here was I innocently thinking it was a variant of the warm apple pie in the eponymous movie.

        2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: So is a raspberry-pie something I should (or shouldn't) know about ?

          I really had no idea !

          I was trying to think of some innuendo about a BBC Micro but the pi seemed more modern

    2. Stoneshop
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: Not surprising with those company names

      The pioneers of the industry picked sexual innuendo-soaked names. Honeywell. Wang.

      The latter once ran the marketing slogan "Wang Cares".

      Very, very briefly.

  20. Bonce

    Deploying a build

    It's not a sexual euphemism, but I always equate "deploying a build" to "having a poo"

    1. Bloakey1

      Re: Deploying a build

      Nahh, that is a core dump.

      1. Diogenes

        Re: Deploying a build

        for those of a military bent also known as giving birth to an officer

        1. Adze

          Re: Deploying a build

          I used to work with some ex-mil types who, on hearing someone fart would exclaim:

          "Keep shouting sir! We'll find you!"

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Deploying a build

      It's not a sexual euphemism, but I always equate "deploying a build" to "having a poo"

      That about sums up the quality of some software I've seen too…

  21. SoaG

    Oral humming

    Will work wonders for the wife too.

    You're welcome.

  22. GreyWolf

    Love Story Told in Linux Commands

    whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump

    1. What? Me worry?

      Re: Love Story Told in Linux Commands

      Finally, someone mentioned FINGER. :)

    2. Adze

      Re: Love Story Told in Linux Commands

      There's a T-shirt with something similar on it:

      who girl; look; talk; date; strip; touch; unzip; finger; head; mount; uptime; fsck; more; fsck; more; yes; yes; more; umount; make clean; sleep

  23. Jusme
    Headmaster

    Well actually...

    VME SESSION STARTS AT 17:00:07

    -begin

    -help(37022)

    DESCRIPTION:

    THE EXISTING CONTEXTS FOR THE REQUIRED NODETYPE DEFINES THE STARTING POINTS FROM WHICH SELECTIONS MAY BE PERFORMED,THE SYNTAX OF THE SUPPLIED HIERARCHIC NAME IS SUCH THAT NO MEANINGFUL SELECTIONS MAY BE MADE FROM THE EXISTING POINTS FOR THE REQUIRED HIERARCHIC NAME

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Well actually...

      You filthy beast you .....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Well actually...

      and I seem to remember that what it actually means is "missing semicolon".

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Well actually...

      My suspicion is that the original error message read something like "You forgot semicolon, idiot", and after the management had finished complaining, the programmer created the error message you quote.

      Because I've done that myself, in the past.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Whatever you do, don't talk about forking at Pycon.

  25. Spoonsinger

    Re:- Alistair Dabbs

    So on image and presentation, basically the Will Self of the IT world. Not saying it's a bad thing, but unless he takes coke on a plane with a prime minister and does a weekly commute from the Shetlands or Orkney's, (can't remember which) to London, I can't take his opinions on board. (Mind he is still a good read).

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Alistair Dabbs

      >> the Will Self of the IT world

      Except much shorter, poorer and less likely to get published in New Statesman or The Guardian. I know this because I tried.

      1. John H Woods Silver badge

        Re: Alistair Dabbs

        >> the Will Self of the IT world

        >Except much shorter, poorer and less likely to get published in New Statesman or The Guardian. I >know this because I tried.

        Their loss.

        1. Spoonsinger

          Re: Alistair Dabbs

          ">> the Will Self of the IT world

          >Except much shorter, poorer and less likely to get published in New Statesman or The Guardian. I >know this because I tried.

          Their loss."

          Maybe if he dressed up like Molly Ringwald?

          (Not saying that's a good tactic, and probably not a good look for him, but.... - nope just write for the Register thank you very much, gentile poverty is the way to go)

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Black Box

    I don't know why, but when people refer in a presentation to a "black box" model it always makes me smirk.

  27. Dr_N

    Mons Pubis

    Oh Mr Dabbs, you do get yourself into some awkward situations.

    Well done.

    BTW have you looked up "skiing" on Urban Dictionary?

  28. frank ly
    Coat

    So, your wife is a linguist?

    I'm on my way.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: So, your wife is a linguist?

      Is she cunning ?

      Nudge-nudge wink-wink

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

        Re: So, your wife is a linguist?

        She's been to Croydon.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The article was very funny

    - but then I grew up with the Carry On Films as reflections of the changing mores of contemporary British society up to the 1970s.

    I remember many years ago sitting in a cinema in the Afrikaans-speaking city of Pretoria, South Africa watching a Carry On film. They were very popular films there - but the experience was culturally enlightening. All the audience would laugh at the slapstick parts. However - the verbal, or even visual, innuendoes resulted in only small pockets of the audience laughing. The rest of the audience exuded an air of puzzlement. It was obvious that the normally very strict film Afrikaans censors had also missed the jokes - and only those raised with an English language background saw them

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    As the actress said to the bishop

    "VME ERROR 37022: Hierarchic name syntax invalid taking into account starting points defined by initial context."

    That takes me back. It meant you would not get a canonical expansion correctly positioned in someone's domain.

  31. David Nunn

    A building at which I worked in 2008 had the wiring ducts next to the toilets. I was greatly amused one afternoon to see a sign in front of the toilet door, proclaiming "WARNING: CABLE LAYING IN PROGRESS", and still associate comms folk with poo

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      A comms engineer was called out in the middle of the night. His normally mild boss surprised him by saying "Get down to ..... quick - their comms is in the sh*t. When he arrived he discovered that the building maintenance had been trying to clear a blockage in the toilets. After trying various caustic substances to no avail they used a drain rod. After much pushing there was a sudden movement of the obstruction. They flushed the pipe and went home - job done.

      Meanwhile in the comms room on the floor below a hazardous mess worthy of an episode of Doomwatch** was spreading over the modem racks and dripping onto the floor - from the now uncoupled 4" plastic waste pipe in the false ceiling void.

      **Doomwatch was a TV drama series about the unexpected dangers to the environment. Everyone of a certain age remembers the plastic eating bacteria that escaped from a research lab.

      1. Darryl

        "After much pushing there was a sudden movement of the obstruction."

        Seriously? You trying to make this too easy?

  32. LordWilmore

    Re: Now, IBM can finally perfect its hi-tech stuff

    I'm pretty sure the designers of 'tar' made the command line options so difficult to remember just so that people were forced to type 'man tar'.

    Always makes me laugh though, and is usually followed by a quick check on the man page for 'finger', just to check for any updates I'd missed.

  33. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

    Reticulating splines

    Now I want to sleep on a bouncy castle.

  34. Paul Kinsler

    ok then

    so what's the non-euphemical translation of the famous linux kernel message, now sadly departed, "lp0 is on fire"?

    1. hplasm
      Happy

      Re: ok then

      IIRC there was once a ceratin type of high speed line printer that did tend to catch fire in the event of a paper jam.

      Also, 8008 an early microprcessor, fnar fnar. ( only funny on a 7 segment display)

    2. Bloakey1
      Coat

      Re: ok then

      Do not forget the differently oriented programmer, his password was:

      C : <enter> .

      To hot for coat but have djellabayah in hand.

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    From the really old school, IBM 360 Assembly language command 69 (decimal) is Branch and Link.

  36. Phil W

    This t-shirt...

    http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/a651/

    That is all...

  37. Jeff Lewis

    "rising in the pegging order"

    Pecking order.. not pegging order.

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bad Idea

    "I ask my wife why she is browsing pictures of men being rogered by their female partners with plastic whangers."

    That, my friend, is a remarkably bad question to ask. Behold the consequences.

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Of course

    " that time I slipped in the shower and fell on the bathtaps."

    Ah, yes, you slipped, eh? :)

  40. MyffyW Silver badge

    From the world of IBM networking circa 1994

    I remember the TSR program "link support layer" would display a message as it attached to the network:

    "Inserting into ring"

    Followed by

    "Ring insertion successful"

  41. chrishansenhome

    Gepetto would be proud

    A company I used to work for wrote applications for DOS (long ago, of course). At that time hard disks were limited in capacity. Every once in a while a client would call us (I was in the client service area) and say, "I've had a very strange message from your program. All of a sudden it stops and 'Pinocchio' appears on the screen. What's wrong?"

    I'd say, "That means your disk is full. Delete some files and try again."

  42. Wilco

    Weak

    Must try harder (not innuendo, just a request for a less crappy columnist)

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Weak

      No, no, you haven't got the hang of this. You're supposed to say that X minutes of your life was wasted reading the column and that you want cash recompense. Join the queue, pal.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Weak

        There's a queue?

        I'll get my Gundam.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Weak

      I'm sure Alistair would happily refund double the money you paid him… all $0 of it.

  43. Marcus Aurelius
    Joke

    LOHAN?!?!?!?

    If double entendres are an issue, then this project should get a rocket!

  44. Caesarius
    Coat

    Poetic style to reduce innuendo?

    Perhaps we could avoid embarrassment if we used quite a different style of error message. My favourite is haiku, see Salon Magazine competition (which I could only find using the archive site).

    On the other hand ... oh sod it. I mean, bugger. Perhaps I need to wash my mouth out...

    That's why this icon is used so many times. Mine's the unwashed waterproof ...

    (I need help. Shit. I mean...)

  45. TitterYeNot

    Who knows what they’ll make of Norbert Spankmonkey...

    Dear Sir,

    What's so funny about Norbert Spankmonkey? I have a very great friend named Norbert Spankmonkey.

    Yours etc.,

    Hugh Janus

  46. The Axe

    Firmware

    Then there are the terms hardware/firmware/software. My wife still giggles when I say I'm writing firmware. Even after 12 years.

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Firmware

      She giggles when you're writing firmware, or when you're writing "firmware". Only, the first doesn't seem very funny.

      1. Speltier

        Re: Firmware

        One needs to make a thorough test of the firmware/hardware interface in all modes. Development may use simulation first to ensure their component functions stand alone; followed by the use of a test vehicle perhaps. Then a full integration test using live firmware/hardware.

        Mechanical types may test to destruction but I'd personally rather not use my own hardware for that purpose.

        During all the repeated test cycles one has to watch for state changes resulting in future issue. If this is unintended then income may be impacted.

  47. Captain Hogwash

    You're right

    "Perhaps the real reason for ensuring that alert messages are dull is that walking the dog, reaping the corn and churning the milk are actually yet more euphemisms for disgusting sexual practices of which I am blissfully unaware."

    A lot of people are rumoured to go "walking the dog" after dark at one of our local beauty spots.

  48. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I've been pegged

    Seeing as no one else is admitting to it.

    It was ok for the first 5 mins or so, then she seemed to get a bit too into it for my liking and got a bit aggressive.

  49. Custard Fridge

    Where to begin...

    Twisted pair (matron)

    RAM

    VESA mount

    Hard disk, floppy disk, 3.5" (standard, apparently) 5.25", 8" disk...

    Ctrl (think about it)

    Cooling fan

    Enclosure

    Jet-set willy

    Surge protector

  50. Omgwtfbbqtime
    Stop

    So what filth does the error message in system shock refer to?

    "Our System Has been Shocked! But don't forget to salt the fries!"

    on second thoughts I don't think I want to know....

  51. Stretch

    Someone has been playing Banished.

  52. Shaha Alam

    the number of words in our vocabulary that *don't* have a sexual connotation is probably somewhere around the 20% mark. and all of them exist in engineering manuals.

  53. Jacques Kruger
    Paris Hilton

    This is not the first time my wife – a linguist – has inadvertently taught herself...

    This is not the first time my wife – a linguist – has inadvertently taught herself...

    Cunning, is she?

  54. Yugguy

    Carpentry's the thing

    Riddled with double entendres.

    Bang, hammer, nail....

  55. earl grey
    Pint

    well done Dabbs.

    Have another one

  56. Britt Johnston

    Pegging (3)

    Pegging is also something the Scottish Central Bank can do to its currency, in contrast to the non-central banks, who will be speculating on the robustness of the peg.

  57. Darryl

    What was the software that popped up the error message "Shut 'er down, Earl. She's sucking mud"?

  58. Colin Ritchie
    Windows

    Be afraid.

    Señor Dabbs, I would get worried if the missus uses the same excuse to research the word cockcage....

    "Yes dear, apparently it measures the number of Sales Guys on a single office floor."

  59. Random Yayhoo

    Never on The Register!

    If mammary serves.

    Heaven help me, I have no coat!

  60. Wisteela

    I believe she likes it up the register.

  61. wayne 8

    Non-standard Penetration

    Was a real project title for a marketing campaign until someone thought more about it.

  62. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    An oldie but a goody

    "No digital input until I am turned"

  63. Craig 28

    I'm literally blind and I dropped such a clanger in a supermarket once. I was in there with my guide dog who's great in the street but finding things on the shelves is beyond what he's capable of so I naturally ask the staff to help me find X item, at which point I follow them round as they help me gather up my shopping. While I was following this member of staff I said to my guide dog "follow the lady boy" then realised how very wrong that could have been taken, luckily she hadn't noticed that it sounded like lady-boy.

    Then again there's always the time he got his tail up some poor woman's skirt in Macdonalds. Having a dog in a place where people don't expect it can be quite entertaining at times, even if it is frustrating the way people behave more often.

  64. Jo 5
    Happy

    yep that's part of the relief of the job

    As a sysadmin for too many years most of this IT double entendre is what makes it just abotu bearable.

    Examples:

    Working with French guys on software releases which they insisted on calling not versions but virgins. That joke never got old. Ooo lala ziz is ze best virgin now. Or zat virgin is bugged etc etc.

    Lots of "I have checked your box and its very dusty"...

    Lots of multiplayer gaming with port issues and "have you fingered by port yet?" (yes i know finger is a unix email info tool but we mashed i into a double E anyway.

    and lest we forget fat pipes, floppies, and gender benders.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like