Intentionally Awkward Title

Some things are just hard to talk about in casual conversation. It may be because they contain an obscenity, sexual reference, or one of the Inherently Funny Words, but whatever the case is, saying the title usually results in an awkward pause and clearing of the throat after saying it.

These days, more and more things are doing this entirely on purpose, often to draw attention to a controversial subject and push people's comfort boundaries. It's also done often enough just to try and be funny, especially if it's of the Dead Baby Comedy variety. Often leads to variable Politeness Judo when talked about publicly.

Differs from Have a Gay Old Time in that this is when the awkwardness is entirely intentional. Differs from a Double Entendre in that it's not at all subtle. Usually used as part of Filth. When Executive Meddling prevents the awkward title from being used, it becomes a Censored Title.

See also Contemptible Cover, which may or may not go hand in hand with this trope.

Page contains expletives, so therefore definitely isn't work-safe. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Examples of Intentionally Awkward Title include:

Anime

  • A good number of Hentai fall under this, and among the worst are titles such as Bondage Queen Kate, Boobalicious, Virgin Auction and Sex Warrior Pudding.
    • Note that the above are all their titles in the English market. Well, Boobalicious' original name is (in English, mind you) Milk Junkies. Not that much better, really.
    • There is also a comic called Nipple Magician. Because the writer thought it sounded cool and the American guys who publish it in their comics anthologies like to laugh their asses off while simultaneously getting off at the mere thought.
    • The best English re-title for a hentai has to be The Hills Have Size.
    • Also The Rapeman and Rape! Rape! Rape!
    • My Nipples are Dicks
    • Come to think of it, a lot of guilty pleasure Slash Fic has this problem.
  • Gintama. It's a near-homophone for kintama, a Japanese word meaning "testicles" (literally "golden balls"... get it?). Try asking "hey, did you see this week's Gintama?" in the language and get ready to get looked at funny.
  • Would you have thought that Stroke Material - My Fucking Lover was actually a Shoujo comic with little to no Fan Service in it?
  • Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt. That is all.
    • The OST's songs have some pretty interesting names as well, including such gems as "Dancefloor Orgy" and "Technodildo".
  • My Balls. The balls in question contain Sealed Evil in a Can. Worth taking a look at.
  • In a similar vein, Onani Master Kurosawa. 'Onani' is the Japanese word for masturbation that eventually comes from onanism. And yes, it's more or less Exactly What It Says on the Tin, while still being Better Than It Sounds.
  • Bobobo-Bo Bobo-bobobo bobobo-bo-bobo-bo...bo...bobo...buh.
  • Kuso Miso Technique literally translates to "shit soup technique".
  • The penultimate episode of Persona 4: The Animation is titled "The World is Full of Shit".

Comic Books

  • Similarly, the Sin City story "That Yellow Bastard" has been covered up by comic vendors in some parts for this reason, though by today's standards "bastard" actually isn't that bad.
  • The Preacher (Comic Book) sidestory focusing on the backstory of The Grotesque, Arseface, was named The Story Of You-Know-Who to avoid this. Which just seems odd in light of how the cover was a close-up of his face.
  • Satan's Sodomy Baby

Film

"Was there pre-production trouble with your film title?" "I'm not that innocent not to know there's a double entendre, but it's a joke: The boy's nickname, because he picked at his food as a child. Originally, the MPAA turned down the title, and we went to court about it. My lawyers had a list of titles to show them like Shaft, Free Willy, In and Out, and I gave a little speech saying, 'It might be vulgar, but it's not an obscene word' and 'This is a movie about someone who wants his good name back. And in this case the good name is Pecker!'"

  • Dick - a film from 1999 starring Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams, about two teen girls help bring down President Richard Nixon and get the nickname Deep Throat.
  • The James Bond film Octopussy, and the documentary about it called Inside Octopussy
    • Chris Cornell said that while "You Know My Name" doesn't Title Drop the phrase "Casino Royale", "Nobody wrote a song called 'Octopussy' but I think that was a mistake!"
  • Inglourious Basterds. As noted above, "bastard" is not quite as horrible a word in US culture anymore, but is still considered "bad."
    • It's also worth noting that both words are misspelled.
  • The film adaptation of Kick-Ass is a double example of this trope: it has the word "ass" in it, thus causing marketing and open discussion problems, and, well...
  • I watched In and Out last night. Don't look at me like that, it's a good film - there's this teacher, and he finds out he's gay, and - hey, come back here!
  • The German movie Der Wixxer. Usually spelled Wichser, this word means "wanker".
  • The original title for 50 First Dates was going to be Who The Hell Are You?.
  • The indie film Good Dick. Though some of the film focuses around porn and sex, it is really a romantic drama about a video store employee and a reclusive girl who rents porn from him.
  • One-Eyed Monster, a movie about an alien possessing Ron Jeremy's penis and using it to kill people. It was supposed to be given the even more awkward title Ron Jeremy's Dick, but the director decided that if Zack and Miri Make a Porno couldn't get the full name on the marquee, there was no way he could get that one through.
  • Hands on a Hand Body. It's a documentary about a contest of endurance and the hard body of the title is a truck (the hands being which contestant can keep their hands on the truck the longest with the winner getting the truck).

Literature

  • In 2002 African American author Randall Kennedy published a book entitled Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. Watching TV commentators try to talk about it without actually saying the name was one of the fondest memories of 2002.
    • Similarly, there is a book titled Cunt.
  • The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories.
  • The Book Of Feckin' Irish Slang That's Great Craic For Cute Hoors And Boosers and others in the same series.
  • Who Writes This Crap? by Luke Wright and Joe Stickley, a satirical look at the bad writing present in daily life.
  • Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Shit? by Alan McArthur and Steve Lowe, a modern social commentary story.
  • There's a children's book titled Everyone Poops. Similarly, there are also ones in the same vein called The Gas we Pass and The Holes in Your Nose. Now imagine trying to ask for it at the library...
  • At one point in The Princess Diaries series (not, unfortunately, in The Movie) Mia's best friend Lilly starts a magazine for literature written by students and calls it..."Fat Louie's Pink Butthole", after Mia's cat. The cover of the first issue featured, well, Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Executive Meddling by the principal forces her to change the title to "The 'Zine".
  • Louise Rennison probably aimed for a mild version of this with her Georgia Nicholson books: Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging, Knocked Out By My Nunga-Nungas, Dancing In My Nuddy-Pants...
    • Though even that's a bit too spicy for Hollywood, which has filmed the first of them as "Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging". Goodness knows what they'll do about the Nunga-Nungas...
    • "And Then It Came Off In My Hand". Full stop. (But it's not FUNNY as Perfect Snogging! What were they thinking?)
  • The Color of Her Panties, one of the Xanth novels by Piers Anthony.
    • They don't exist, at least at the time of the reference—the title refers to an unanswerable question for a Wizard who can supposedly answer anything: The "Her" in the title refers to a mermaid, and Xanthian Mermaids are nudists (and for that matter don't have legs). Later, when she becomes a main character, she is given a pair of panties to wear... and nothing else, resulting in men gawping at her, stunned for the next few scenes.
      • More to the point - they're magical, color and pattern-changing panties, so Good Magician Humphrey still couldn't answer the question.
    • Also in that series, Isle of View. Apparently designed to make teenage readers too embarrassed to say the title out loud, while still being perfectly innocent in print.
  • The novel by Native Canadian author Tomson Highway, Kiss of the Fur Queen. It's a multi-layered title that makes sense in context, but the DoubleEntendres are obviously voluntary. Paired with Flamboyant Gay-ness, Trickster figures, Squick and Freud Was Right played both sinisterly straight and for fun. Try and pronounce it in an academic or otherwise serious context without feeling incredibly awkward.
    • The titles of his plays also contain such gems as "Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing."
  • Several novels written by Irvine Welsh, including The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs, The Acid House, Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance and of course, Porno.
  • Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition. No, really.
    • Apparently read and enjoyed by Mr. Depp in preparation for his role as Jack Captain Jack Sparrow, it shows.
  • "I see you have Naked Pictures of Famous People on your bookshelf."
    • As well as the book of that name hiyo!
  • Inga Muscio's well-known feminist book Cunt, whose subject is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
  • Then there's Gene Wilder's first novel, My French Whore...
  • Amanda Filipacci's novel, Nude Men.
  • Also Sheepshagger by Niall Griffiths.
  • Kurt Vonnegut once wrote a story called "The Big Space Fuck", which is published in Harlan Ellison's anthology Again, Dangerous Visions.
    • It's also present in Vonnegut's autobiographical hodgepodge Palm Sunday. Reads much like a Kilgore Trout story.
  • Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book famously caused stores to resist stocking it out of fears that commie-loving hippies would take the bait. To be fair to the stores, the book is in fact mostly an instruction manual on civil disobedience, including sections on how to shoplift.
  • A Man's Horn. Yes, the Double Entendre is intentional.
  • Completely unavoidable example: The Mammoth Book of Lesbian Erotica.
  • The title of Charlotte Roche's book "Feuchtgebiete" roughly translates to "wetlands" (though it's actually more like "regions"). Because of good PR, everyone knew it was "that sex book", making the euphemism completely obvious.
  • Brazilian group Casseta & Planeta self-help book parody, Como se Dar Bem na Vida, Mesmo Sendo um Bosta ("How To Succeed In Life Even If You're A Complete Turd").
  • Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy's classic guide to polyamorous relationships, The Ethical Slut. Also a Trope Namer.
  • Tao Lin's first novel is called Eeeee Eee Eeee.
  • A book about the possible evolutionary origins of nonconsensual sex is called A Natural History of Rape.
  • John Sladek's novel The Muller-Fokker Effect is technically clean, but you have to be very careful how you pronnounce it. Probably intentional; according to Sladek "Young persons have no business reading such a book, which contains sex, violence and anagrams. I think I can speak for the moral majority here when I assure you that we are doing our best to prevent such problems by closing all libraries."
  • Frankie Boyle's autobiography is titled My Shit Life So Far. Many stores displayed the book with a "Censored" sticker covering the offending word, but it's surprising just how many didn't.
  • The Big Penis Book Follow up to the The Big Book of Breasts. Both feature partially transparent dust jackets that when removed reveal the principal subject matter. They are also coffee table sized, and rather artsy with lots of interviews, and naked pictures.
  • Rob Bell wrote an excellent book on romantic love and sexuality from a Christian perspective. The title? Sex God. Try walking into your local Christian bookstore and asking if they have that.
  • The newspaper The San Francisco Chronicle has a weekly list of whatever books its critics most recommend, and the number one book is listed with a picture of its dust jacket. When that book was Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, the second word was rendered as Bull**** in the list, but the dust jacket was shown as it was, making the endeavor somewhat pointless. (The book's actually more artsy than the name would suggest.)
  • On a different note, I Am Not a Serial Killer. (You double-took for a moment, admit it.)
  • There is a Bizarro story entitled The Greatest Fucking Moment in Sports. It's about a bike race. Another is The Baby Jesus Butt Plug, about exactly that.
  • Stirling Johnson has written books entitled English as a Second Fucking Language and Watch Your Fucking Language. They are, appropriately, about the use of profanity.
  • 'Popular Music From Vittula by Swedish author Mikael Niemi, "Vittula" being essentially "Cuntville" in Finnish.
  • Negri, froci, giudei & Co. (Niggers, Faggots, Kikes & Co.) by Italian journalist Gian Antonio Stella. It's about racism and intolerance in every country and historical age.
  • The Cunt Coloring Book. For some reason Amazon.com offers no cover image.
  • Black comedian Dick Gregory also wrote a book called Nigger, detailing his life in the Civil Rights Movement. In his dedication page, he explains "every time you hear the word 'nigger', remember that they are advertising my book."
  • Rampaging Fuckers of Everything on the Crazy Shitting Planet of the Vomit Atmosphere


Live Action TV

  • The show Penn and Teller Bullshit is often abbreviate to P&T: BS! precisely for this reason.
    • When Penn refers to the show on the radio, he cuts it in the middle with a clap, "Bulls" "Hit", to avoid FCC fines. He's not normally one to mince words.
    • Two different covers are available for the complete season DVD collections. The ones you can order by mail are labelled "Bullshit!". The ones on store shelf displays are labelled "BS!".
  • Jackass is slightly more tame by today's standards, but at the time it premiered resulted in some amusing Politeness Judo when referred to.
    • Bizarrely, some people in the UK weren't sure how to pronounce it - despite 'jackass' originally meaning a kind of donkey, for which the British pronunciation is the same as the American. Seriously, "Jackarse"? *shudder*
  • Childish example - the comedy Bottom was originally to be called Your Bottom, so that people would ask their friends things like "Did you see Your Bottom on telly last night?"
    • Even better, they were also hoping for things like "I saw Rik Mayall in Your Bottom last night."
  • That's My Bush!. 'Nuff said. (It's a parody of sitcoms and politics featuring George W. Bush as the main character.)
  • The new William Shatner show, $#*! My Dad Says Ads encourage calling it "Bleep My Dad Says" to avoid well, you know.
    • Shatner didn't understand the censorship and continued to call it by its original name though.
  • Most of the episode titles of 3rd Rock from the Sun are puns involving the word "Dick" (the protagonist's name). The writers apparently thought they would never be seen, and some of the ones they got away with are frankly unbelievable.
  • In Parks and Recreation the library department gets revenge on people by sending them messages that they have late fines for nonexistent books with this sort of title.


Music

  • The album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols from the Sex Pistols, who themselves invoke this trope.
    • Guess where the price sticker is usually found on the CD case for that album.
      • Soon after its release the album title was found to be officially not obscene due to "bollocks" also being an archaic slang term for a priest. Nobody (the hearing included) was fooled, but there was nothing legally prohibiting it. The guy who won this case, by the way, was John Mortimer QC, perhaps better known as the creator of Rumpole of the Bailey.
  • The pornogrind band Cemetery Rapist, along with songs like Herpes Injection, Granny Panty Snatcher, and Dick Sucking Daughters for Cornfield Fun. This band is the embodiment of Squick.
  • Fuck (Incidentally, Kiss considered calling themselves Fuck when they first formed)
  • Nashville Pussy. Taken Up to Eleven with the Let Them Eat Pussy album, which must have been a fun one to announce at the Grammy Awards.
  • Anal Cunt (Often referred to as "AC" or "AxCx" as a result. When their record label would only print "A.C." on their album artwork, they started using a logo where the letters intentionally looked like the body parts that they stood for). The titles of virtually every one of their songs probably qualify as well.
  • Tit Wrench
  • Schlong
  • Prick
  • 3 Way Cum
  • Pussy Galore
  • There exist at least two bands by the name "Bitch."
  • Bitch Magnet
  • Bitch Alert
  • Bitchcraft
  • Bitch And Animal
  • Anvil Bitch
  • Son of a Bitch
  • Psycho Bitch
  • Southern Bitch
  • Little Bo Bitch
  • 7 Year Bitch
  • Atomic Bitchwax
  • Jack Off Jill (they were originally called 'Jack In Jill' which isn't much better)
  • Jizz Janitors
  • Excrementory Grindfuckers (just for a really obvious example)
  • Butthole Surfers, often shortened to BH Surfers by prudish DJ's
  • A few years back, Providence had a punk band called Violent Anal Death. Some of their fliers portrayed Bert sodomizing Ernie.
  • Alabama Thunderpussy
  • SHITDISCO
  • The Genitorturers
  • Me Mom and Morgenthaler
  • Dayglo Abortions
  • Vaginal Croutons
  • Fucked Up
  • Porn (formerly known as Men of Porn)
  • The Master Musicians of Bukkake
  • Some of the above names could have come right out of Jello Biafra's "Names For Bands" routine which also includes "John Wayne On Acid", "Tits, Ass and Money", "The Absentee Thought Lords", and "Bono's Charred Remains." After all, Why would you want to be the 350th band to call yourselves something like Bad Attitude?
  • Even a band name as comparatively tame as "Barenaked Ladies" sparked controversy in Toronto in 1991.
  • Just before The Rolling Stones decided to found their own record label, they had to produce one more song for their current label to fulfill their contract. However, nobody ever said that the song had to be releasable, and so they wrote one called "Cocksucker Blues". It's pretty much about what it sounds like.
  • The Artist Formerly Known As the Artist Formerly Known As Prince has written and performed a song called "Pussy Control".
  • There's also apparently a silly band called Ween, who released a series of download-only songs collectively called Craters of the Sack. These included titles such as "Big Fat Fuck," "Put The Coke On My Dick," and "Suckin' The Blood From The Devil's Dick."
    • Ween also has several other odd titles throughout the rest of their discography: "Mushroom Festival In Hell," "Licking The Palm For Guava," "I Gots A Weasel," "Marble Tulip Juicy Tree," "Mister Would You Please Help My Pony?" "Reggaejunkiejew," and "Strap On That Jammypac" (the song doesn't even tell you what a Jammypac is), just to name a few.
  • The Arctic Monkeys also named their EP Who the Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys?, mainly to stop the disc from getting airplay and becoming widely known.
  • The Bloodhound Gang song "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo". Record execs had to swap "Charlie" and "Uniform" in order for it to get any airplay, because people (especially uptight Moral Guardians) love to have Fun with Acronyms.
    • Also note that this is not just an acronym, but also the Military Phonetic Code for the actual spelling of the F-bomb.
    • The same band's album "Hooray for Boobies" was sold in some stores with an altered cover and the title shortened to simply "Hooray."
  • "Too Drunk To Fuck" by The Dead Kennedys actually placed on British radio charts. Of course, the DJs had to refer to it as "the latest song by The Dead Kennedys."
  • Grinderman's song "No Pussy Blues"
  • The band Rainbow Butt Monkeys. They later became Finger Eleven, which really isn't much cleaner if you think about it.
  • The Nine Inch Nails song "Starfuckers Inc." was usually referred to as "Starlovers Inc." in polite company.
    • The radio edit was titled "Starsuckers Inc."
  • The hip-hop group Niggaz With Attitude.
  • The Beatles' Remix Album Let It Be...Naked. Often called "Naked" for short and to differentiate it from the original Let It Be. This trope makes it easier, alas, for "Naked" not to exist.
  • Warren Zevon's song "My Shit's Fucked Up". The song itself is about the narrator's terminal cancer.
  • "Niggerslut", "Rape the Angel", and "Kill All the Faggots" by Demoniac.
  • "Fuck That Shit" by Belle and Sebastian. Also counts as some weird form of Soundtrack Dissonance, because it's actually a relaxing, summery instrumental.
    • Ditto (on both counts) "Judy Is a Dickslap"
  • Brazilian example: Rita Lee, "Tudo Vira Bosta" ("All Becomes Shit").
    • Another ones from there: Ultraje a Rigor, "Filho da Puta" ("son of a bitch"), and Raimundos, "Esporrei na Manivela" ("I Ejaculated on a Handle")
  • Marilyn Manson has several songs, such as May Cause Discoloration Of The Urine Or Feces and Rock 'n' Roll Nigger".
    • "Rock N Roll Nigger" was originally a Patti Smith song from her '78 album Easter.
      • And, of course, Patti Smith's first single was "Piss Factory".
  • John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "Woman Is The Nigger Of The World", where the title was regarded as a powerful social statement.
  • Averted by The Offspring's song "Stuff Is Messed Up", which despite its title features the chorus "Shit is fucked up".
  • Van Halen's album For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge isn't an awkward title in and of itself, but since the title puts one in the right frame of mind to notice the acronym...
    • The title is itself a reference to a popular folk etymology for the F-word.
  • Nas' latest album was going to be named Nigger, but stores said they wouldn't stock it, so it will be released untitled. Meanwhile, Nas also put a mixtape online, called The Niggertape.
  • Stone Temple Pilots were called Shirley Temple's Pussy for a short time before Executive Meddling made them change it.
  • The Venetian Snares album "Winnipeg Is A Frozen Shithole," an awkward enough title in its own right, contains a song titled, "Die Winnipeg Die Die Die Fuckers Die." Ouch.
    • Venetian Snares later came out with an album that's awkward to discuss for quite a different reason: the album, and all its tracks, are titled in Hungarian. It's not awkward for Hungarian speakers, of course, but for everyone else...
  • The band The The is a bit difficult to discuss.
    • Michael McIntyre wondered what would happen if you tried to discuss The The in Yorkshire, where the word "the" is reduced to "t'" (as in t'Internet).
      • T'thee, of course. Just like certain American accents would render it as "thuh thee".
  • The drag queen Vaginal Cream Davis.
  • Somewhat more politely than most of the above, Pet Shop Boys named their first album "Please," because they liked the idea of forcing people to ask, "Could I have the Pet Shop Boys' new album, 'Please'?"
  • Parodied in This Is Spinal Tap (surprise, surprise) with a fragment of an unfinished song- a very sweet, lyrical piano solo. The name? "Lick My Love Pump".
    • Real-life example/inspiration: Frank Zappa, who would intentionally give beautiful instrumentals titles like "Sexual Harassment in the Workplace", "G Spot Tornado", and "I Promise Not to Come in Your Mouth".
  • The Motion City Soundtrack song, "Let's Get Fucked Up and Die" is example enough. But, to go further, the song begins with the titular lyric, followed by, "I'm speaking figuratively of course." Once you think about the figurative meanings of "die" ... Yeah.
  • Jimmy Buffett's "Why Don't We Get Drunk (And Screw)" was considered a novelty song and was a jukebox favorite for many years. When there are children in the audience, Buffett sings "Why Don't We Get Lunch In School."
  • And there's always "(I'd Just Like To Fuck You) One More Time" and the rest of David Allen Coe's "underground" repertoire.
  • In, 1967, The Monkees made a song called "Randy Scouse Git" (a phrase the band had heard on Britcom Till Death Us do Part), which went uncensored in the US ...because most of us don't know Britsh slang. Everywhere else in the world, the tune was released as "Alternate Title".
  • There's a Japanese pop-rock band named Porno Graffiti. Gratuitous English at its finest.
    • Not exactly. It comes from Pornograffiti, an album by the (American) band Extreme; its a portmanteau!
  • Nirvana's "Rape Me" (labeled as "Waif Me") and it's B-side "Moist Vagina". Also, "Territorial Pissings" and the B-sides album Incesticide.
  • The Smashing Pumpkins' "Silverfuck" (labeled as "Silvercrank")
  • Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra once teamed up to produce a somewhat splendiferous live album. The title was S&M, as in "Symphony and Metallica". Try telling people the S&M version of this one is great. Try it!
    • And of course, they wanted to call their first album Metal Up Your Ass instead of Kill 'Em All.
  • The name of Big Black's second album, Songs About Fucking. Exactly What It Says on the Tin, albeit in the wrongest way possible.
    • Jello Biafra took advantage of this after The Dead Kennedys were put on trial for obscenity. Following their acquittal, he refused to shake the DA's hand, and then gave him a copy of Songs About Fucking.
  • Not actually a case now, but the names of Black Sabbath and Judas Priest got Moral Guardians in quite a stir back in the day.
  • Serj Tankian's "Beethoven's Cunt", which is also a Non-Appearing Title.
    • In addition to his band, "The Flying Cunts of Chaos"
    • "Beethoven's Cunt" is the only song in the Rock Band downloadable content library with a censored title, appearing as "Beethoven's C***" on the menu.
  • Nelly Furtado's "Shit on the Radio (Remember the Days)" (single is titled "...on the Radio")
  • Guns N' Roses named a leg of their Use Your Illusion Tour as "Get In The Ring Motherfucker - Round II" (a lyric of one of their songs).
  • Tori Amos' "Fat Slut"
  • Kiss, "Burn Bitch Burn".
  • Neil Young's song "Fuckin' Up" was written "F* !#in' Up" on the Ragged Glory album. Young says he wrote the song—a loud, off-the-wall rocker about relationships—hoping to get a warning sticker from the Parents Music Resource Center. They didn't give him one. It's rumoured that one of his collaborations with Pearl Jam, "I Got Id", was originally named "I Got Shit" (because that's really in the lyrics).
  • Adrian Legg's "Pass The Valium" yields a predictable request at his live shows.
  • Liz Phair's "Hot White Cum", "Fuck and Run", and "Shitloads of Money".
  • Nazareth's Hair of the Dog (both song and album) was originally "Son of a Bitch", and the new title is a pun on this ("Heir of the dog").
  • There's a conceptual band called "Fuck Your Stupid Civilization."
  • On the not-filthy-but-really-awkward end of the scale, there's the band "!!!". Apparently pronounced "chk-chk-chk".
  • Similarly, there's the rapper A who chose that name to make it as hard as possible for people to find his work on Napster.
  • The Blink-182 album Take Off Your Pants and Jacket seems to have slipped in under the radar.
  • Peaches has loads of them. Some examples include "Slippery Dick", "Diddle My Skittle", "Suck and Let Go", and of course, "Fuck the Pain Away".
    • As well as album titles that include Fatherfucker and Impeach My Bush.
  • R.E.M.'s "Fuck Me Kitten," printed on the jacket as "Star Me Kitten."
  • Holy Fuck
  • Fuck Buttons
  • Jackie-O Motherfucker
  • Fuzzass
  • Machine Gun Fellatio, who brought us such classics as "Pussytown", "Butter My Arse With a Pigeon" and "Mutha Fukka On a Motorcylcle"
  • "I Might Be a Cunt, But I'm Not a Fucking Cunt", "Fuck 'Em, Fuck 'Em - The Lot of 'Em!", "Defecate on My Face", "The Penis is Mightier than the Sword" by TISM
  • "I Sucked A Lot of Cock to Get Where I Am" by Regurgitator
  • "We Hate You South African Bastards" by Microdisney
  • "I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass" by Yo La Tengo
  • The title of Captain Beefheart's 'Trout Mask Replica was chosen to be awkward—there are clashing consonants in every word. The alternate title "Mousetrap Replica" which does a similar thing was used as part of the title of the song "The Blimp" which appears on the album.
    • While we're at it, Trout Mask 's follow up album Lick My Decals Off, Baby is almost always referred to as Decals when talking about it to people because it guarantees funny looks when said in real life.
  • Even Britney Spears has one with "If U Seek Amy."
    • In case you don't get that one, imagine that the title is spelling something out. F-U-C-K Me.
    • A big band put out a record called "If You See Kay". In the 1940s.
  • The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band have a best of called "The Bestiality of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band"
  • The Wildhearts have songs called "Thunderfuck", "Pissjoy", "Shut Your Fucking Mouth And Use Your Fucking Brain" and several others. (They got one S-word onto Top Of The Pops simply by censoring the lyric sheet and not singing too clearly.) They also released an album called "P.H.U.Q."
  • "What the name of Lynyrd Skynyrd's first album?" "It's (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd)." "That's what I said!"
  • Ween! "Don't Shit Where You Eat", "Flies on my Dick", "Piss Up a Rope", "She Fucks Me", "You Fucked Up", "Waving My Dick in the Wind"...
  • The Scissor Sisters, especially once it's learned that not only is there only one woman, but she's the only straight permanent member. This however, is toned down from their original name (the end result of an arms race of vulgarity) "Dead Lesbian and the Fibrillating Scissor Sisters."
  • GWAR, or most of their songs anyway: "Fucking an Animal", "Sex Cow", "Sexecutioner", "Preschool Prostitute", "Bring Back the Bomb", "Gonna Kill U", "Knife in Yer Guts", and "Black and Huge". and, while we're at it...
  • Cannibal Corpse, with song names such as "Gallery of Suicides", "Meat Hook Sodomy", "Fucked With a Knife", "I Cum Blood", "Edible Autopsy", "kull Full Of Maggots", "Butchered at Birth" (also an album title), "Addicted to Vaginal Skin", "Necropedophile", "Entrails Ripped From a Virgin's Cunt, and so on in this vein.
  • Cee-Lo Green's "Fuck You" made for an interesting Grammy nominations list in 2010.
  • The Cows' Sexy Pee Story, which has a title track as well as a song called "Shitbeard".
  • Test Icicles, anyone?
  • Rapper El-P has a song called "Tasmanian Pain Coaster"
  • The song "Constellation Dirtbike Head" by Tobacco
  • "Shit Towne" by Live
  • My Penis is Made of Dogshit. What kind of music do they play? Mostly acoustic grindcore, with a bit of musique concrète.
  • Pornopop. And there are two bands with this name!
  • Patti Smith's "Pissing in a River". Try telling someone that there's a poignantly beautiful, heart-wrenching song by that name, and they'll probably laugh at you.... until they actually listen to it. Wow! (Look it up on YouTube. You're welcome.)
    • Patti Smith was also responsible for "Hard Nipples," "Piss Factory," and "Rock n' Roll Nigger."
  • Cock and Ball Torture.
  • Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs' "I Couldn't Spell !!*@!". (The chorus goes "I'd have wrote you a letter but I couldn't spell (Bronx Cheer)."
  • The last song on the Rolling Stones' Goat's Head Soup was originally titled "Star Fucker". Ahmet Ertegün of Atlantic Records made them change it to "Star Star".
  • "Mother !*!*!* Boogie", an instrumental boogie-woogie piece by Mungo Jerry.
  • The band "Gary Glitter's Hard Drive," now a bunch of practical unknowns.
  • The Broken Penis Orchestra.
  • Mindless Self Indulgence.
  • Mudhoney's single "You Stupid Asshole". There's also "Run Shithead Run" from the soundtrack of With Honors: They titled it that way because they hoped their submission to the soundtrack would be rejected, but it wasn't.
  • A non-profane example would be The 6ths and their albums Wasps' Nests and Hynacinths and Thistles - Stephin Merritt has said he specifically chose the band's name and album titles because they would be difficult to say aloud (especially if one has a lisp).
  • The Bloody Beetroots give us "Fucked from Above 1985."
  • There is actually a band who record under the name "Child Pornography."
    • In a different kind of awkward: Their second album is titled "The Beatles" and bears a blank white cover.
  • Japanese Torture Comedy Hour, a noise act featuring members of Agoraphobic Nosebleed.
  • Richard Ramirez (yes, that's his given name) has a real name that was unintentionally awkward and a lot of bands/nicknames that weren't: Priest In Shit, Black Leather Jesus, Anal Drill, Fuck Patrol, Last Rape, 12yr Old Proud Parent, Naked Girl Killed In Park, the list goes on and on...
  • While the name is relatively mild compared to some, there's The Urinals, who later changed their name to the less awkward to discuss 100 Flowers.
  • Joy Electric has an album called The Tick Tock Treasury. As he described it at a concert on May 1, 2003:

Ronnie Martin: I had a new record come out two weeks ago, and it's called the, uh, The Tick Tock Treasury. And, uh, that is the, uh, the fourth time I've had the guts to say that title in front of people. You know. Sometimes it takes a lot, you know? You take the risks, you pay the price.

  • The Fags. They're actually a perfectly accessible Power Pop band who happened to choose a name that pretty much guarantees them no mainstream radio play. They also played on the other, less offensive meaning of their name by calling an album Light 'Em Up.
  • Atlanta rapper Tity Boi, though he eventually started going by the more "family friendly" moniker 2 Chainz.
  • Perhaps in mockery of these tendencies, there is a hip-hop musician who records under the name "Cusswords."

New Media

Becki: I got fish tacos! Nothing bad implied there...
Max: Your fish tacos?
Becki: Shut up!
Max: Very nice...
Becki: Little children watch this! Be discreet, come on.

  • Just try pronouncing http://slashdot.org aloud.
  • The website Uke Hunt (say it out loud, and it's the instrument, not the other kind of uke). The site owner has acknowledged this and seems amused by it.
  • The Nostalgia Critic videos "Top 11 Fuck Ups", "Top 11 Mindfucks", and "Holiday Clusterfuck" (Although some of the titles are censored on the episode page.)
  • Felicia Day has coined the term "Vaginal Fantasy" as a tongue-in-cheek description of urban or historical fantasy fiction that is aimed at women and prominently involves romance and/or sex. Once a month, she'll discuss such novels with her friends in a Google+ Hangout On Air, and also post the discussion to youtube - naturally it can be awkward mentioning that you were just watching something called "Vaginal Fantasy Hangout #2".


Software

  • There was a scheduler for Linux called the Brain Fuck Scheduler (no relation to the Brainfuck programming language) written by Con Kolivas. The name likely reflects frustration at kernel development politics that had put an end to an earlier scheduler by the same author called Completely Fair Scheduler.
  • The most likely explanation for the GNU Image Manipulation Program.
    • Ditto for File System Consistency Check, the common name for the program used to fix corrupted data on UNIX systems. Not only is the name unpronounceable, but it's only one letter off from a major swear word. And if it fails to save your data, then you're fsck'ed.


Theatre

  • The Vagina Monologues is an entirely intentional example as a show highlighting the experiences of women in hard situations. (Including a very controversial one about a teenage girl who is fed alcohol and then raped by an adult woman, and closes the monologue with the line, "If it was rape, it was good rape.")
    • In an interview about this play on the Today show, Jane Fonda said, "I was asked to do a monologue called 'Cunt'." Yes, she said that on live television.
      • Miss Ensler herself then followed up with her story about "worrying about getting vagina out of [her] mouth". She meant that she was hesitant about saying the word at first... One imagines that somewhere, a stage manager was screaming for a commercial.
    • Some productions sell promotional buttons with "I Love Vagina" written on them.
  • Urinetown is also an example. Lampshade Hung in the opening song: "How about a bad title? That could kill a show pretty good."
  • Once Upon a Mattress is a musical comedy retelling the tale of "The Princess and the Pea". It's less raunchy than the title suggests.
  • Foreskin's Lament. It's about a man nicknamed foreskin because he's small, useless and nobody would miss him if we went away. It's actually quite a moving performance, but trying to advertise for it is damn near impossible.
  • The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas has occasionally run into advertising woes.
  • Ruddigore while extremely tame today was meant as (and was) an example of this.
    • Not exactly. Ruddigore was the Bowdlerized title. The original, scandalous title was (cover the kid's eyes!) Ruddygore.
  • "People say it's quite unlikely the two of us should stick! But I just tell them, Hey! It's Me and My Dick!"
  • There is a play called Shopping and Fucking. Reportedly (this troper had a relative working at the theatre at the time), it was referred to internally as simply Shopping, even in this non-English-speaking country.
  • "Totally Fucked" and "The Bitch Of Living" from Spring Awakening.
  • John Ford, “’'Tis Pity She's a Whore”, of which the Other Wiki says:

The play's treatment of the subject of incest made it one of the most controversial works in English literature.[3] The play was entirely omitted from an 1831 collected edition of Ford's plays; its title has often been changed to something euphemistic such as Giovanni and Annabella or 'Tis Pity or The Brother and Sister. The play's treatment of the subject of incest made it one of the most controversial works in English literature. The play was entirely omitted from an 1831 collected edition of Ford's plays; its title has often been changed to something euphemistic such as Giovanni and Annabella or 'Tis Pity or The Brother and Sister.

Video Games

  • You Are Empty is a rather interesting name for an FPS.
  • Nintendo originally named their new console "Nintendo Revolution" during production.[4] It eventually was known to be called Wii. The fact that the console went from such a cool name to such a weird one made people all around the world discuss "the stupid name" for months. It's believe to be one of Nintendo's smartest move.
  • The second game in the Ratchet and Clank series was called Ratchet and Clank Going Commando. Lest you think that was an accident, part 3 was subtitled Up Your Arsenal. The series also includes installments with the subtitles Size Matters and Quest for Booty.
    • A Crack In Time had the working subtitle of Clock Blockers. It's not surprising to see why Sony had to step in for that one.
    • Up Your Arsenal was originally name Rear Assault. You decide which is more suggestive.
  • Big Mutha Truckers, anyone?
  • Time Fcuk
  • "Gay Sex!", an iPhone card game.
    • Which rather notoriously rose to the top spot of GameFAQs' most-visited games list, meaning it was on the front page for all to see, and didn't show any sign of dropping, because curiosity brought new people to the page all the time. It was eventually removed from the site's otherwise comprehensive games list for...fairly self-evident reasons. Although this is often considered a blow for both free speech and gay rights on the site.
  • Deus Ex, especially for people who don't know how to pronounce Latin (Jew Sex? Do Sex?)
    • Even the correct pronunciation, when spoken rapidly, could come out similar to "day sex."
  • Its a little early to add this, but the inevitable Final Fantasy XXX will either be this trope or Square Enix will have to come up with some kind of interesting way around it.
    • Final Fantasy Thirty? Final Fantasy 3 X? Final Fantasy Triple X? Pretty simple.
  • Work Time Fun. The abreviation is almost always printed on the box in huge letters, while the full title is printed in smaller letters and is less noticable.
  • The X-series of games features enemy aliens named Kha'ak. Go ahead, explain that they suck to your mother. The in game computer doesn't even try to avoid the problem. You will be attacked by Kha'ak.
  • The Touch Dictionary on the DS had its name shortend to Touch Dic on it's cover. Cue internet memes
  • Katawa Shoujo, for Japanese speakers. Let us just say that "katawa (片輪)" is not considered a very polite term to use for disabled people.

Web Original

  • The Best Page in The Universe: it's difficult to take about the title of the work without sounding extremely subjective.
  • YouTube Poop. If your friends don't know what it's referring to, you might get weird looks.


Webcomics

  • Gunnerkrigg Court. That is an odd combination of syllables. Tom Siddell confirms that this was intentional: "I wanted a title that was intentionally awkward and easy to search for on Google."
  • Fruit Incest. The name is meant to be nothing more than an eye catcher. Also ironic since the comic itself is usually squeaky clean.
  • The title Questionable Content sounds as if the page's content were questionable. Gives it an Forbidden Fruit appeal.
  • The Devil's Panties: It's not satanic porn! Honest!
  • City of Reality. The name is eerily dissonant to both readers and outsider characters. (The residents of said city think it fits perfectly, though.) It's apparently based on a rather unconventional definition of the term.

Other

  • The Swedish vacuum cleaner company Electrolux once sold its products in the UK with the slogan "Nothing Sucks like an Electrolux." Needless to say, it didn't sell very well.
    • This was actually completely intentional, and succeded in getting the attention it was intended to, for years.
      • In 1978, Loriot, a german comedian whose sketch show rivals Monty Python's Flying Circus in popularity in Germany to this day, had one sketch in which a salesman visits a housewife to sell her the new "Heinzelmann" vacuum cleaner. Several times he quotes the products slogans "It sucks and blows the Heinzelmann, where mom can only suck." Since Loriots entire work was based on akwardness, the inuendo was surely intentional.
    • Another Swedish example: An ad which was supposed to feature a new brand of cookies and a couple of older ladies, turned into this when one of the ladies said "we like all six" (referring to the six different tastes). The Swedish translation for "we like all six" can also mean "we all like sex." That line became the slogan.
  • The British and Japanese clothing line, 'Fcuk' (French Connection United Kingdom). In parody of this, a British company making cute wooden ornaments of wetland birds calls itself 'Dcuk'.
    • Derwent College at the University of York also sells 'DCUK' merchandise - the university's symbol is a mallard duck.
    • When a French Connection UK store was opening, they put up large signs in the windows read "FCUK SOON" (leading to complaints). A pub around the corner called the Five & Lime put up their own signs reading "fluk now".
    • Someone's selling "CNUT" shirts celebrating the Danish king.
    • The Sedgwick Club, Cambridge University's geology student society, uses the abbreviation SCUK.
  • Deviant ART, almost certainly. The official name for those registered there is Deviants, which can get a little, ah, interesting when trying to explain IRL that you already exhibit your art, and where.
  • Mixed drinks. Someone decided you need to be either vaguely embarrassed or stupidly impressed with your own wit when you ask the bartender to give you Sex on the Beach, a Screaming Orgasm, a Slow Comfortable Screw, Fuck Me Hard, etc.
    • Lampshaded in the Yahoo Serious movie Reckless Kelly when Kelly goes into a bar and asks for a Cocksucking Cowboy- and gets one. He opts for a glass of water instead.
  • There used to exist a minor league hockey team in Macon, Georgia. The name of the team? Why the Macon Whoopee of course! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macon_Whoopee
  • Eighty percent of Americans are not allowed to repeat the titles of most Richard Pryor albums. These albums were up for Grammy awards most years, which must have made the ceremonies interesting.
  • Quite a few guitar effects pedal manufacturers do this, probably inspired by Electro-Harmonix—proud designers of the famous Big Muff, not to mention the Bass Balls, the Black Finger, and the Golden Throat Mouth Tube!
  • The Young Conservatives rebranded themselves as Conservative Future in 1997 after William Hague became party leader. Some bright spark decided to put out literature using a "CFUK" (Conservative Future UK) branding. Given how well the party was regarded at the time (not very highly, to say the least), it backfired. The Liberal Democrats put out flyers saying "CFUK are a bunch of AWNKERS". Oh, the irony.
  • Starbucks recently began selling "petites", including one called the "Red Velvet Whoopie Pie". Baristas usually just call them "Red Velvets."
  • The drug flavoxate, a urinary antispasmodic, was marketed under the name "Urispas" (pronounced "you're a spaz"). Try telling this to someone who's already trying not to pee...
  • The New Zealand pizza chain Hell. They specialise in spicy pizzas.

Tabletop Games

  • The title of Panty Explosion is intended as a parody of the Word Salad Title school of Anime naming, but ends up invoking this trope as well.
  • Magic: The Gathering's joke set Unhinged has several, including Assquach, City of Ass, and Necro-Impotence.
  • The roleplaying supplement for BESM titled "Cute And Fuzzy Cockfighting Seizure Monsters". Even though the phrase refers to roosters and the book is about Mons, many bookstores refused to carry it because of the title. The authors ended up producing a different edition without the "Cockfighting", and selling the original version only to specialty stores.

Western Animation

  • Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!, and yes, the exclamation point is part of the official title. If you can avoid giggling to yourself when you say this out loud and can spit the whole thing in a single breath, the people you said it to will usually react with raised eyebrows, Flat What, polite giggles or stepping away slowly. Which is a pity, since the show is actually pretty good, the title is just deliberately over-the-top.
  • The makers of Batman Beyond considered naming the show The Tomorrow Knight, which would prompt advertising like "Tomorrow night on Tomorrow Knight".
  • Some of the episode names for The Ambiguously Gay Duo, including: "Blow Hot, Blow Cold", "A Hard One To Swallow", "Trouble Coming Twice", "The Third Leg Of Justice", "First Served, First Come". But considering the whole point of the show is to slap around random innuendos, the episode titles are tame.

Real Life

  • North Carolina's yearly What The Hell Con is a minor example.
  • There is a village in Hungary called "Csesznek", which is the Hungarian word for "They fuck".
    • Actually, it's somewhat milder, like "They screw".
    • There's also "Bugyi", that means "Panties".
    • And Pornóapáti, which means something like "Porn Abbotean".
  • There is a small town in Flanders called Reet, which roughly translates to "asscrack" in Dutch.
  • In reference to the Kamina anecdote above, let it be known that the Japanese name for crab claypot is "kani (crab) nabe (claypot)". Of course, this is also Hokkien for "fuck your mother". Enjoy your meal.
  • On a slightly more local scale than most examples, the improv comedy club at the University of California, Irvine is called "Live Nude People."
  • Canadian examples:
    • The Government of Ontario, Canada has an energy conservation campaign called "FLICK OFF", with the already-titillating slogan universally written in uppercase letters with a slightly curved L. The website for the campaign is replete with Double Entendre.
    • The economy region in Nova Scotia. It includes towns called upper economy, middle economy, and lower economy, and the economy falls (a waterfall).
    • Look at a map of Newfoundland: Dildo, Come By Chance, Conception Bay ... Newfies don't care what the rest of the world thinks of their maps.
  • The B-1 Bomber is called the Bone; B-One. There's a prototypic version designed for air-to-air, the B-1R. Mhm.
  • The Victoria University of Wellington Student Association ran a campaign in 2008 promoting sexual health checkups for men. The campaign's name? "I Heart My Penis". It got a bit awkward when the Association president wore a shirt with the campaign name on it to a graduation ceremony.
  • An annual sex Q+ A/safety education thing at one college: "I <3 Female Orgasm". Besides posters all over campus, there were also 2-inch buttons handed out for publicity.
    • Well, if you put your button in my hand... No, I can't say it! I feel unclean, unclean!
  • There have recently been a few irreverent breast cancer campaigns. To wit: "Save the Ta-Tas" (started by film critic Joe Bob Briggs), "Feel Your Boobies", "Boobapalooza", etc.
    • One made for Mexico pictured women wearing a T-shirt with the legend "Favor de tocar" ("Please touch").
  • In the 1960's an anarchist group formed that called themselves "Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers", mainly to frustrate news media by having an "unprintable" name.
  • Finland has got towns called "Varkaus" (theft) and "Kolari" (car accident). Yes, there's a highway to Kolari.
    • There's also a small village in Ostrobothnia called Kuolema, "death", and another called Alapää - literally, "lower end", but it's understood to mean "groin".
    • Those aren't even the most egregious examples. Here's what you should do if you ever are bored: get a large-scale map, a road atlas will do just fine, and start looking at the pages depicting Lapland. You'll find tons of really, really obscene place names - usually not towns or villages, but small lakes, hills and suchlike. In the lines of "Reindeer Piss Lake" and "Shit Rock".
      • Oh god, Finland. Some more examples include Dick Islands (with Little Dick and Middle Dick), Negro Village (a street), Testicle Lake, several Cunt Ponds, Dog's Cock Ditch, Cat Spanker's Alley, and The-Island-shat-out-by-Saara.
  • King's Lynn in England has an area named Gaywood.
  • There are several unrelated Vietnamese noodle restaurants called the Pho King. It's Pho King delicious.
  • Not obscene, but has to be awkward for anyone from there, is Moron, Cuba. Yes, that means the same thing in Spanish (albeit pronounced differently).
  • In England, "fags" and "faggots":
    • "Fag" is slang for "cigarette".
    • "Faggot" is a Midlands dish made of ground pork, liver, onion and tomato pressed into meatballs and served with a special sauce. The most popular brand is Mr. Brain's pork faggots. No, really.
  • On Brazil, there's a city called Rolândia. "Rola" is usually a form of the verb "to roll", but can also be a slang for "penis"... So yeah, basically we have a city practically called "Dickland". You can imagine the jokes that Brazilian humour shows made when they found out...
  • There's a brand of salted nuts called "Nobby's Nuts". The slogan was "Nibble Nobby's Nuts". They embraced this quite quickly by having the man in a UK advertisement, being told that he needs to nibble Nobby's nuts, jumping at Noddy Holder's groin.
  • There are 2 villages called Twatt in Scotland, being in the Orkney and Shetland isles respectively.
  1. ↑ That is "Saw-see"
  2. ↑ Sea's Teeth
  3. ↑ Sea becomes Shit
  4. ↑ to be fair, they also nicknamed the Gamecube "Dolphine", so it's not something unusual in them
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