The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #154170   Message #3614659
Posted By: Jack Blandiver
02-Apr-14 - 03:56 PM
Thread Name: BS: Shh.. Don't let them hear you..
Subject: RE: BS: Shh.. Don't let them hear you..
(Master Bates and Seaman Staines)

...Not forgetting Roger the Cabin-boy. BUT all three are characters of Folklore, not Captain Pugwash. Funny how these things catch on!

From WIKI : 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. The origin of this myth is likely due to student rag mags from the 1970s.