Explaining a pun or nick-name from a Manning Coles thriller Recently I have read, or re-read, a number of the old thrillers by Manning Coles. In the book _With Intent to Deceive_ (1947—published in the United States as _A Brother for Hugh_ ), I ran into this bit of filler that puzzled me completely: > “Mr. Quint,” began Bagshott. > “Samuel Quint. Don’t know if my parents had a strong sense of humor or none at all.” > Bagshott smiled politely. None of my dictionaries of books of slang have offered any hints as to why that name would be considered humorous, but I admit that I have never been good at word-play. English nicknames can range from subtle to silly, which doesn't help! Any ideas?

I don't see any immediate allusions that come to mind, Samuel being a common name, and Quint being somewhat uncommon but not unknown surname. In the game of piquet, the terms is sometimes used to refer to a five card straight flush or as a shortened version of "quintuplet". The surname derives from Middle English Quient, or Old French Cointe or Cuinte with a meaning of "Wise Prudent; Crafty Sly; Elegant; Vain", but that would be just the last name.

The only other thing I can think of is that he is referring to that his initialism, "S. Quint" could be read as the English word "squint" as in to peer closely.