• friend_of_satan@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      I was going to say no, because the name “dick” probably wasn’t commonly used to refer to a penis back then, but I looked it up, and apparently that meaning started being used in the late 1800’s, so now I think they probably did know what they were doing.

    • terranoid@lemmy.cafe
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      9 days ago

      Nah, I honestly don’t think so. It was a much more common name.

      Kind of like how come/cum works. If someone put in a comic book, “you must come here right now!” we wouldn’t think twice. But if you stopped using that version of the word, it might seem really dirty in the future.

      Richard specifically is an interesting case because it was super common for a long time until like very recently, 90s-ish. The last couple of generations now think “dick” is a funny nickname when it used to be a John Doe term. “Every Tom, Dick or Harry”

      • whalesnrainbows@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        While it was a common name, it was also a common double entendre, even back then.

        It’s highly unlikely that they didn’t know what they were doing.