"this sucks" (and more)

[Jonathan Lighter]

You mean people would still be shocked by, "Where the bee fucks, there fuck
I?"

Sounds so rural.  And it makes plainer sense than the original. But possibly
really painful and self-defeating if you stop to think.

Also, not only must they have had been much less giggly minds in the 18th
C., they could tell the difference by the long ess's lack of the little
stroke in the middle of the eff.

In the Inglish future, when there are no capital letters, they'll wonder how
we could tell the diff between capital G and capital C. Or between Q and O.


JL
On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 9:46 AM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "this sucks" (and more)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A fairly well-known academic legend tells of a professor who belatedly
> (and, it now seems, archaically) asks a secretary to type and duplicate a
> poem for use as a handout to accompany his lecture, and he gives her an old
> facsimile text (in some versions of the legend, of Donne's "The Good
> Morrow"; in others, of Shakespeare's song "Where the bee sucks, there suck
> I").  The secretary, unfamiliar with the "long s," mistakes the word "suck"
> for "fuck" (or should I say substitutes "suck" with "fuck"?), so that the
> blindly-distributed handout shockingly reads "fuck."
>
> --Charlie
>
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of David
> A. Daniel [dad at POKERWIZ.COM]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2011 9:16 AM
>
> Hmmm. I wonder how they told the difference... ;)
> DAD
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---
>
> Actually, if you use 18th century typography, fuck and suck are *less* than
> one letter apart.
>
> JL
>
> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:49 AM, David A. Daniel <dad at pokerwiz.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---
> >
> > On sucks: the T-Shirt, bumper-sticker, book-title phrase "there is no
> such
> > thing as gravity, the Earth sucks" goes back several decades as I recall,
> > and this obviously makes reference to what one does with a straw in a
> > milkshake, or what a vacuum cleaner does, or what M Lewinsky was
> > accomplished in, as it is the sucking action that would draw one to
> Earth,
> > and apparently also refers to the idea of just being bad, unpleasant or
> > substandard and, well, sucky. On the other hand, today, whether or not
> > someone thinks that sucks has to do strictly with fellatio probably
> depends
> > on the age of the person in question. Younger person - no fellatio; Older
> > person - fellatio. It would be interesting to take a poll... I also think
> > sucks is popular because suck and fuck are just one letter apart and thus
> > both have that good old Anglo Saxon guttural, ugly-sounding clout to
> them,
> > kind of makes them a complementary pair.
> >
> > On KHJ: L.A.'s KHJ was actually "Boss Radio 93". KFWB was "Channel 98,
> > Color
> > Radio". I don't remember either one calling itself kick-ass, but then I
> > don't remember everything... They were both Top 40-type stations for a
> > while, then KFWB went all news in 1968.
> > DAD
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >  ---
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 8:22 PM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu>
> > wrote:
> > >
> >
> http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/on-the-taboo-avoidance-patrol/
> > >
> >
> > FWIW, in the '60's, L.A.'s Radio KHJ, Channel 98, featured not only
> > "color" radio, but also "kick-ass" radio, according to its main DJ, a
> > white guy who called himself "Yo' Bruthuh."
> >
> > At that time, that a white guy should speak so on the public airwaves
> > kicked *much* ass, even in LA-LA LAnd.
> >
> > --
> > -Wilson
> > -----
> > All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> > to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> > -Mark Twain
> >
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> >
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>
>
> --
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