Recently, while in LA, my friend’s son snapped out of his Wii induced coma to show me something cool he had bought with his father that day.

What he showed me was a can of spotted dick. While it sounds like a disease, it’s not. It’s some sort of pudding. How it came to be called spotted dick is anybody’s guess (and everbody has guessed, I know). I’ve read the reasons why, and I get the spotted part, although I can’t say I want to eat anything that has spotted in its name, but the dick part? Not that I don’t like dick. Really. But together, spotted and dick make up one of the most totally unappetizing names for a dessert. A dessert is something that’s supposed to be yummy and sweet, not spotted and dicky. Even “raisin pudding” would have been better, although not much better. But spotted sounds like you can catch something just from touching it.

It got me thinking though. What else does dick mean? If you look at freedictionary.com, then dick - in it’s most vulgar sense of the word, means penis. But in its less vulgar incarnations it means:

Someone who isn’t very nice, or in less polite terms a total asshole. It’s also slang for a detective and in “Chiefly British” it means a fellow (although I’m sure that it’s not used quite so much anymore or exactly what Chiefly British means). As a verb it means to cheat or trick. And straight dope says that dick has also meant a riding whip and an apron, and an abbreviation for “dictionary,” a policeman and a declaration.

Switching into current events gear here: What about using Viagra on the dick? Well, apparently it’s not just for men’s spotted, or unspotted, dicks any longer. Even though women have been trying Viagra since men have, now Viagra is being marketed to a select group of women. Yep, it’s said to help cure the lack of sexual desire in women who are on antidepressants, especially those women who used to crave, but don’t crave, spotted dick anymore (okay, bad tie in, but I’m all about the spotted dick right now).

If you’re libido is low as a result of popping an antidepressant pill, then Viagra may be the drug you “need” to ingest to feel better. A report in the Journal of the American Medical Assn, whose results were taken from a sample of 98 women (no I did not forget a zero or two) has led reporters all over the world to shout out, WOMEN WITH SEXUAL PROBLEMS STEMMING FROM USE OF ANTIDEPRESSANTS NEED TO POP MORE LITTLE BLUE PILLS. The study, funded by Pfizer, is brand new and completely unbiased...yeah, right, completely unbiased, and it contains no mention of spotted dick.

You can read all about it here.