Re: SUX

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

I'd be interested to see the 1963 antedating--I don't think I know about it, 
though I forget things from time to time.

My paper does not speculate about any particular societal trigger for this 
use of SUCK, though it points out that SUCK was used for generations in closely 
realted pejorative senses in the forms SUCKER PUNCH, SUCKER (is born every 
minute), THUMB-SUCKER, SUCK ROPE, SUCK EGGS, SUCK THE HIND TEAT, etc. Thus the 
"new" use of SUCK is not so new -- it is a natural devlopment out of a host of 
pejorative uses of SUCK (including, of course, the epithetic COCK-SUCKER and 
such parallel phrases as SUCK A BIG DONKEY DICK). I'll be happy to send you a 
copy of the paper (I now have it in an e-form) if you will tell me who you are. 
It is of course available in the journal DICTIONARIES, but it is practically 
impossible, apparently, to get a copy from the DSNA, which is not a part of 
JSTOR (but should be), and a lot of libraries don't get DICTIONARIES (though they 
should)!

My own first recollection of the popularly pejorative SUCK comes from a 
message written on a rest-room wall, something to the effect, "The Universe sucks!" 
This was at earliest1968, in Durham, NC.
In a message dated 9/25/04 4:00:54 PM, wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM writes:


> Ron, if your paper on this word answers the question, please forgive me. 
> Send me a copy if you can
> 
> The first time I heard the now familiar verb "suck" meaning "to be highly 
> objectionable, inferior, unsatisfactory, etc." was in the spring of 1964. It 
> became common rather quickly. (The earlier equivalent was "stink," at that time 
> still thought moderately offensive by some parents.)
> 
> I've never found an earlier cite OR even a seemingly reliable placing of 
> this usage any earlier; in a Bildungsroman, for example, or a long-delayed WW II 
> novel. Even "seemingly unreliable" examples are rare.
> 
> No one I've asked has any recollection of  hearing it much before I did, 
> though the earliest "attestations" are uniformly from the NYC area.
> 
> Did anyone on the list learn it earlier than 1964?  If not, what happened in 
> 1963-64 that might have brought to national attention?
>