a thing I somehow only learned recently is that the "gin" in "cotton gin" is short for "engine". it's a cotton engine. cott engine. that's a horrible pun, eli whitney, you prat
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(there's no relation between eli whitney and pratt and whitney. I looked it up.)
reference to a slur
don't ask me how long it took to realize (since I did not read the book and only heard the name in an episode of wishbone) that the tom sawyer character was not named "engine joe", and that the word was not a reference to him being mechanically inclined or whatever