USA Today on "sucks "

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:39 AM -0400 9/30/05, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>In a message dated 9/30/05 12:10:07 AM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:
>
>
>>
>>  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.
>>
>
>I think this is right on the mark. Thanks, Larry. There is nothing inherently
>sexual about "blows," either--or "swallow," yet their use intranstively,
>especially in the right context, can trigger sexual interpretations, as in the
>infamous Duke tee shirt that says, on the front, "State sucks," and
>on the back,
>"Carolina swallows."

It could be (I'd say should be) argued that there's a generally
tendency for these non-episodic intransitives to be understood
euphemistically, i.e. with an unarticulated object one would just as
soon not specify explicitly:

X sucks/blows
Y swallows
W drinks [sc. '...alcohol']
W smells [sc. '...bad']

(The last isn't agentive, to be sure, but the 'smells bad' sense
represents a similar development.)
Others?

Larry