Showing posts with label double meaning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label double meaning. Show all posts

Help! Multiple meanings to 'milking parlour'?

Can anyone out there help an Engine Room regular? Roz has written in with the following query:

Recently my work supervisor asked me whether I knew what 'milking parlour' meant. She thinks it could be a euphemism for some sort of tax dodge or other criminal activity. We don't even use the term 'milking parlour/parlor' in Australia – it's a cow shed! I was wondering whether you and/or your readers would have any idea.


I haven't been unable to unearth anything except the obvious "shed or building specially equipped for milking cows" (OED Online). Nothing about tax dodges or criminal activities, anyway.

Cow's udder, pic from MorguefileUdderly stuck...

Double meanings: baby bits

Seen on our work intranet:

Baby bits for sale

I hope this is referring to toys, clothes, cots and such because otherwise it's just disturbing.

Hey, journo, leave those kids alone

Think before you write: recruitment ad

A magazine in the group that employs JD and I includes a recruitment ad that is well written and tempting (the job offers 56 days' annual leave, for a start).

The role, we are told, involves managing sites at a number of remote locations. Fair enough.

But someone at the advertising agency must have been having a bad day when they wrote the headline: 'Camp Managers'.