To think this attitude to names like Fanny in old books is silly?

[Carla786]

I've seen posts here agreeing with the new Enid Blyton editions that changed Fanny to Franny and Dick to Rick, some even saying she must have meant it as a double entendre.

 Just seems silly & narrow-minded to me. Not everything was always meant as a double entendre. Should Fanny Price in Mansfield Park also be changed? Or other characters called names that mean different things now? 

I remember my mother passed down a minor Blyton book with a kitten called Bimbo in. Was that Blyton being rude, or just due to the fact that Bimbo was slang for 'kid' then?

Where’s the laugh emoji when you need it !!

Yes, they're really good, and funnier than others. I never really got on so well with Secret 7 or Famous 5. It's nice they're being passed down.
Goon- I do know the other meaning but it took me a while to think of. I hope that doesn't ruin more books now if publishers want to change : would The Goon Show have to be renamed?

Yes that's silly too : by that logic no child can read historical fiction as things will be out of date....

@HelpMeGetThrough made me laugh so much

Totally agree. I’ve always loved a bit of Dick and Fanny myself.

I thought that post was ironic initially but maybe not?

I feel like in previous decades people could maybe contextualise things better? The issue isn't with dirty humour but with people who can't see a word neutrally if it's sometimes used as a double entendre in another context. In Shakespeare's time loads of double entendres were used (including some we don't use now) but that didn't make the usual meaning of the word taboo.
What changed I wonder?

This article is another example of it going too far imo.

https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/25-01-2024/you-might-not-be-able-to-name-your-child-fanny-any-more-but-dick-is-still-fine

I'm thoroughly enjoying this thread! 😂

And I'm probably part of the reason why publishers are censoring this (very mild) stuff. I do love a bit of puerile humour.

Perhaps my irony-o-meter is off kilter today! I hope so, but either way the post reflects a view some people apparently do hold.

Mr Pinkwhistle Interferes.

I’m sure it was fine.

I think its worth remembering that the books weren't revised specifically to change the character names, but to modernize them generally (e.g. "awful swotter" to "bookworm"), for the sake of attempting to boost sales rather than being censorship-driven.

It didn't go very well and Hachette (the major Blyton publisher) changed back to the original language around a decade ago.

Of course kids these days still know what Fanny and dick mean! I taught my primary aged dd to use the word vagina but she calls it her fanny anyway cos she picked it up at school! And kids are always going to laugh if they come across someone with a funny name, it wouldn’t be something I’d actively encourage but it’s going to happen, it’s part of being a kid

I’m not that familiar with Enid Blyton. Are these Fanny, Dick and Titty people all characters in the same book?! That can’t just be coincidence! She must have named them that deliberately to give the parents a laugh or something…or were those names just generally that common back then? What an unfortunate choice 😬

No, Fanny and Dick are in the same book by Enid Blyton, but Titty, short for Letitia, is an Arthur Ransome character.

As we said upthread, Titty was an Arthur Ransome character inspired by a child of a couple he was friends with who called herself Titty after the fairy tale Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse

I doubt her parents saw it as inappropriate or they would have stopped her using it.

Dick really was a common name. So was Fanny, especially for older people (the character is the adult Aunt Fanny). As pps have pointed out, you had people like the TV chef Fanny Craddock in the 60s.

Fatty’s real name was Frederick Algernon Trotter, so the nickname came from his initials. Can’t remember if he was overweight though.

In the book we're never specifically told her whole name. I had a lovely book about the lake district locations of the Ransome books when I was a kid, which somwhere recounted the story that Titty's real-life counterpart, a girl called Mavis, was nicknamed that after the kids' story Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse.

I believe they called her 'Kitty' in the more up-to-date adaptation (hard eyeroll).

Don't even get me started on 'Dirty Dick' or I really will end up in the naughty girls' corner.

It really annoys me in the most recent faraway tree editions that they’ve changed Bessie to Beth and Jo to Joe. What was the need of that?
fair enough to change Fanny to Franny and Dick to Rick if it upsets some peoples sensibilities but why go messing with the other names.

Yes, but also big and burly -- which of course he needed to be as the master of disguise of the Five Find-Outers, who needed to be able to dress up as an adult.

Well Enid Blyton died in 1968 so probably wasn't thinking of double entendres

I wouldn't change the names, but equally, if I had grown up with Rick and Franny, I doubt I'd think anything of it.

I agree about currency. It's less weird to read of someone receiving a ten shilling postal order than a 50p one, especially as 50p barely gets you anything these days.

Don’t forget Fanny Chmelar, the German Skier…

I’ve always wondered that. Also - Willy?

I speak two other languages fluently and no proper names are used as euphemisms for private parts in either.