taboo words in the NYT

[Jonathan Lighter]

Maybe unexpected to Vida because it sounds so, so, 21st Century!!!!! Like, you know?

JL

"Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Arnold M. Zwicky"
Subject: Re: taboo words in the NYT
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On Sep 22, 2004, at 9:40 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote, about the title
"Another Bullshit Night in Suck City", which reviewer Vendela Vida said
has an "unexpected" source:

> Flynn says it's a phrase his pop used.

hmmph. to my mind, that's scarcely unexpected; it's what i would have
guessed, in fact. i wonder why vida was so coy about it.

"another bullshit night" comes up in several blogs, with reference to
disappointing evenings. google also nets a few occurrences of "Suck
City" (with reference to Flint MI and Atlanta GA, at least) that are
*not* references to a band of that name. both expressions in one
package is (so far in my searches) restricted to nick flynn's book.

arnold


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