SUCK a taboo words in the NYT?

[crissy smith]

As far as I know "sucks" is not a taboo word in
popular culture today, but I think that Arnold is
using the word "sucks" to let people see or hear how
weird people use word based on popular culture choice
of words.


--- Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society
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> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: SUCK a taboo words in the NYT?
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 8:50 AM -0400 10/18/04, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
> >
> >Is Arnold suggesting that SUCK is (or is not) a
> "taboo word"? I guess it is
> >for some people under certain circumstances--the
> way that STINK used to be in
> >the 1950s? And there is ample evidence tht its use
> can--or at least has--got
> >kids kicked out of junior high school (at least it
> did in one
> >egregious case in
> >the 1980s).
> >
> >On the other hand, IT SUCKS TO BE ME is the refrain
> in a song in a hit
> >Broadway show, AVENUE Q; one can also buy t-shirts
> at the theatre
> >with that slogan.
>
> And a few more thousand t-shirts are on sale every
> day during
> baseball season--especially this week--around Fenway
> Park in Boston
> on which the same intransitive verb takes a subject
> denoting a
> certain baseball team from the Bronx.
>
> larry
>




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