To think 6 year olds should not be wearing this

[welliments]

Merchandise from a major dance show at the excel centre in London next month. They sell these, and tshirts from age 6 up.

I’m going to have to explain to a 10 year old why she can’t have a jumper...

As a writer, these jokes have always engaged with my love of words...

Sorry, what?! Are you really a writer, and are you really trying to tell us about your intimacy with words??

Your sentence is grammatically flawed. If you start with 'As a writer' the subject of your sentence has to be I (i.e. you, the writer); you've made 'these jokes' the subject of the main verb. So you've automatically disqualified yourself from commenting on the ins and outs of wordplay

#sorry
#Englishteacher
#notawriter

@NotBadConsidering

Have you ever thought that the manufacturers never intended it to be a sexual slogan in the first place?

So some randomer comes up with a smutty joke in the 70's/80's/whenever and all of a sudden we can't have a slogan with "do it" in the middle because someone's bound to think of sex??

If a six year old Harry Potter fan wears a shirt saying "wizards do it with magic" is that a problem for you? How about a fan of Tolkien, "Hobbits do it in the shire",

So dancers aren’t allowed to enjoy their own dance puns
What has what you've said got to do with a 6 year old who happens to do ballet, may still be doing skipping and pointy toes, have no idea what an 'attitude' is in ballet, or what a pun is in language.

So dancers aren’t allowed to enjoy their own dance puns, just in case the rest of us judge them by dodgy standards?

Adults dancers, not a problem. Surely you can see there is a difference when it's a 6 year old child?

So dancers aren’t allowed to enjoy their own dance puns, just in case the rest of us judge them by dodgy standards?

Grown up dancers can do what they want. The argument here is whether a child should sport a dancing sex pun.

If a six year old Harry Potter fan wears a shirt saying "wizards do it with magic" is that a problem for you? How about a fan of Tolkien, "Hobbits do it in the shire

Yes. It would be the same sexual pun. On a child's clothing.

This is going to run and run, isn't it?

So dancers aren’t allowed to enjoy their own dance puns, just in case the rest of us judge them by dodgy standards?

Of course. Because if they use them grammatically correctly, they will be in an entirely different format from the classic "Xs do it with Y" which everybody some people know is a mildly smutty reference to sex.

@TheGoldenBowl

Ah! Yet another one who can't accept the difference between writing professionally and writing on a public forum as part of a conversation.

Shall I start paying my editor to edit all my social media posts, forum conversation replies, and emails?

If a six year old Harry Potter fan wears a shirt saying "wizards do it with magic" is that a problem for you? How about a fan of Tolkien, "Hobbits do it in the shire",

Yes, I would have a problem with both of those because I don't think it's appropriate for my 6 year old to wear sexual slogans.

No matter what the manufacturer's intention, the fact some randomer in the 70s or 80s came up with a smutty joke does now indeed mean that that joke can't be escaped from. You can have a slogan with "do it" on it and intend it to be harmless, but because that joke brings sex connotations you can't put a child in something with that slogan.

@SheGotBetteDavisEyes

Sadly, yes. There is no right or wrong answer because we will never all agree.

And as it's now getting personal and nasty, it may be time to walk away.

Sad.

If a six year old Harry Potter fan wears a shirt saying "wizards do it with magic"

That's a very good analogy. Because the point to be made is exactly the same - it's in the same format as the smutty jokes of old and is, therefore, at the very least, reminiscent of them. And therefore not what you'd necessarily want to allow a 6 year old to wear.

This is going to run and run, isn't it?

I have a feeling that somewhere on page 39 someone will say "well I don't see anything wrong with it". And then someone else will explain that it's just a ballet pun.

I have a feeling that somewhere on page 39 someone will say "well I don't see anything wrong with it". And then someone else will explain that it's just a ballet pun.

😂😂😂

It also seems that some dancers delight about knowing what " with attitude" means, is clouding their judgement. But the jokes are MEANT to be in- jokes within particular professions. And it is of course delightful in understanding a joke directed straight at you. And part of the appeal is their sometimes niche audience. But. They. Are. Still. Sex. Jokes.

Even if you take it as something suggestive, how would one have sex with 'attitude'? It's not really a way anyone describes having sex is it? So even if you do pick it up as being a bit sexual, it makes no sense.
I wouldn't have a problem with my child wearing it

Nobody is offended at the smutty double entendre.
On an adult, I wouldn't turn a hair. I'm not a prude. I'm not outraged.
I'm not clutching pearls. If it were my 18 year old niece, I'd think she was making her own choice and if I don't like it then that's very much my own problem.

But on a six year old who knows no better, it's shocking.
It's not the silly, juvenile sexual innuendo that's shocking.
We grew up with Benny Hill for cripes sake!
What's shocking is that the parents know no better than to dress their small children in clothes that display flagrant sexual innuendo.
Some of the misunderstanding here is that some posters think that we 'pearl clutchers' are just so outraged and offended by anything that suggests or mentions sex. The truth is that most of us have been there and done it twice over with knobs on, far more times and far more often than is good for us, and even more often that we'd ever admit. (OK. Over egging the pudding)

But as deep down in the gutter as we've fallen, we still draw the line at sending our kids out in public sporting salacious 80s straplines.
If you really didn't know it was tacky then fair enough. But now you do.

And the Harry Potter one makes no sense unless it's about sex. "Wizards do it with magic". Do what with magic? Magic with magic? Or something else with magic? Cook with magic? No it can't be that because food is one of the five exceptions to Gamp's law of transfiguration. So what do Wizards do with magic? And what exactly do Hobbits do in the Shire? Hobbit? Can hobbit be a verb? What else do hobbits do? They eat a lot, like parties etc. Could it be that?

Because of the joke I think the intention is "sex". And because of that I don't think a child should wear something like that.

Even if you take it as something suggestive, how would one have sex with 'attitude'?

You'd be upright, with one leg raised. HTH.

*Even if you take it as something suggestive, how would one have sex with 'attitude'?

You'd be upright, with one leg raised. HTH.*

That'd be having sex in attitude. Not with attitude.

Have you ever thought that the manufacturers never intended it to be a sexual slogan in the first place?

Lol, brilliant.

Is this one totes accidental, too? goo.gl/images/jnq1L4

I studied languages from '89 to '93 and am happy to inform you that linguists do it in a foreign language or linguists do it with tongues.😛😛

Really? Thread for publicity by any chance?

Not going to sell many of those sweatshirts on this thread. Eh?

@IMightMentionGriddlebone

Because The modern trombone system has seven chromatic slide positions on a tenor trombone in B♭

I'm guessing you'd also have a problem with a trumpet fingering chart which shows the seven valve positions.

This is my favourite shirt so far. (FTR, charm is a physics term- it's a type of quark.)

This is the description: Charming aren’t they? Physicists love to show charm, but watch out, they are also mighty proud of their hadrons.

FaveNumberIs2

You must be taking the piss. Bravo if you are, you got me.