Captain Pugwash - Libel Case Regarding Double Entendres

Libel Case Regarding Double Entendres

There is a persistent urban legend, repeated by the now defunct UK newspaper the Sunday Correspondent, that ascribes sexually suggestive names – such as Master Bates, Seaman Staines, and Roger (meaning "have sex with") the Cabin Boy – to Captain Pugwash's characters, and indicating that the captain's name was a slang Australian term for oral sex. John Ryan successfully sued both the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian newspapers in 1991 for printing this legend as fact.

Read more about this topic:  Captain Pugwash

Famous quotes containing the words libel, case and/or double:

    Nor do they trust their tongue alone,
    But speak a language of their own;
    Can read a nod, a shrug, a look,
    Far better than a printed book;
    Convey a libel in a frown,
    And wink a reputation down.
    Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

    In case I conk out, this is provisionally what I have to do: I must clarify obscurities; I must make clearer definite ideas or dissociations. I must find a verbal formula to combat the rise of brutality—the principle of order versus the split atom.
    Ezra Pound (1885–1972)

    On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend’s life also, in our own, to the world.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)