G-rated. That's what makes it doubly funny.
so... you know, this may be a little risky, but, what the heck!
My thesis advisor (like me) was a carbohydrate biochemist. He taught a grad-level course for years called
Organic Biochemistry -- essentially the chemistry of proteins and carbohydrates, plus a little on lipids.
The common monosaccharides have three letter abbreviations based on their trivial names.
Mannose, for example, is known as Man
Galactose, Gal
My (very) straight-laced advisor would write those down on the chalkboard and then deadpan:
"Of course, if you have Man
and Gal,
it stands to reason that you also have...
And he'd write: Fuc
Fuc being the abbreviation for the deoxyhexose known as
fucose.
Yeah... well... OK.
I guess maybe you had to have been there...
PS and FWIW: I grew up pronouncing
fucose with a long
u (
fewcose) -- however, others, particularly in the UK and Europe, I think, say
foocose (in both cases, the
c is a hard
c sound). Both, of course, are steadfastly G rated for conversation; the
double entendre only works in writing.