USA Today on "sucks "

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Fri Sep 30 00:07:38 UTC 2005


At 5:25 PM -0400 9/29/05, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>In a message dated 9/29/05 4:49:05 PM, bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU writes:
>
>
>>  USA Today has two articles on the shifting semantic status of "X sucks",
>>  including commentary from Ron Butters. My only quibble is that the writers
>>  imply that "sucks" *always* had an obscene connotation, when the evidence
>>  (AFAIK) shows that the presumed sexual meaning only developed after the
>>  expression had gained some popularity.
>>
>
>Well, David Fertig (quoted at the beginning of one of the stories) seems to
>agree with your view (as do I, though you'd never know it from reading the
>article--and I sent them a copy of my DICTIONARIES article).
>
>We have had a lot of discussion of this very point here. I don't want to get
>into it again, except to say that the USAToday articles do not do justice to
>the complexity of the etymological histories, nor of course could we expect
>them to. Basically, they just assume that a lot of people will associate SUCK
>with fellatio if push comes to shove, which seems pretty likely. And
>that a lot
>of people will construct such an etymology in their minds, if requested to do
>so, which also seems pretty likely.
>
>What has always been interesting to me is that SUCK occurs in so many other
>expressions, including pejorative ones, in which no one ever thinks of
>fellatio--so why do they often think of the connection in the
>environment, "Yankees
>Suck"?

While I agree with Ron's point here, and with his article (which I
include in course packets), I would still suggest one quasi-answer to
the last quasi-rhetorical (indirect) question above.  Don't most of
those other expressions, including pejorative ones, involve
*transitive* occurrences of the verb "suck" (e.g. the much-cited
"sucks eggs", "suck the hind teat", "suck wind", "suck (one's)
thumb")?  The intransitive or absolute occurrence, on the other hand,
occurs largely in two constructions: in the "Yankees suck" form (or
"Harvard sucks", as it's often pronounced around here) and in "X
sucks" as a dispositional predication approximately equivalent to "X
is {disposed/known} to perform oral sex [on some male/any male]".  If
this observation is right, it would go some toward explaining why, as
Ron points out, "a lot of people will associate SUCK with fellatio"
even if this is unfaithful to the actual etymological record.

Larry, willing to be dissuaded



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