SUX

[Jonathan Lighter]

Thanks for the instant reply, Ron.

Can't understand how Yahoo cloaked my identity:

<Jonathan Lighter>wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com

The earliest "suck" from 1964 (not '63) was "You suck!"  (Not addressed to me, BTW.)
The speaker was a schoolmate who, while not quite a thug, was distinctly lowbrow. IIRC, he used other four-letter words rather more frequently than the rest of us.

Other people seem to agree informally that in this "early period"  the word was more often applied to people than things, conditions, etc, but that the wider application followed soon after.  Since nobody was keeping detailed notes at the time, including me, I can't be sure that that apparently reasonable belief was actually the case.  If so, then we must have been pretty close to the introduction of the term. Which seems surprising.

My impression back then, as well as  now,  was that the word related to oral sex rather than to any of the possible phrases you mention, most of which I never heard in those days.  In that dim period, girls never said it and some became deeply offended when the word (like other taboo vocabulary) was uttered off-handedly in their presence.

I don't know what your post-pubescent taboo vocabulary was like, but here's what I remember about usage in junior high & high school in NY in the 60s. I briefly attended an all-boys' school after public elementary school.  In elementary school, sexual and scatological terms were virtually unheard.  I can recall a "shit" and a "fuck" from the fifth and sixth grades, but they were isolated instances.  ("Damn" was fairly common but considered daring and grown up; "goddamn" was also in use, but a real shocker.)

In 7th grade, however, I met for the first time bunches of lads who interlarded their sentences with "fuckings" an "motherfuckings".  I'd never even heard the latter before, or the former used as an adjective.  It was a disturbing experience.

Then, in my next school, which was co-ed, the language became less flamboyant again. The girls, especially, avoided any scatological or sexual imagery, except for occasionally, the already denatured "bullshit" and "pissed off."  "What an asshole!" was heard once in a great while. But nothing like today.

That's what I recall, much of it vividly. I'm not trying to exalt some imagined "golden age" of soft-spokenness when even NYC teenagers (though we were definitely middle and upper-middle class) were less vulgar in mixed company than today.  But I know we were.

JL



RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: RonButters at AOL.COM
Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20SUX?=
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'd be interested to see the 1963 antedating--I don't think I know about it,=
=20
though I forget things from time to time.

My paper does not speculate about any particular societal trigger for this=20
use of SUCK, though it points out that SUCK was used for generations in clos=
ely=20
realted pejorative senses in the forms SUCKER PUNCH, SUCKER (is born every=20
minute), THUMB-SUCKER, SUCK ROPE, SUCK EGGS, SUCK THE HIND TEAT, etc. Thus t=
he=20
"new" use of SUCK is not so new -- it is a natural devlopment out of a host=20=
of=20
pejorative uses of SUCK (including, of course, the epithetic COCK-SUCKER and=
=20
such parallel phrases as SUCK A BIG DONKEY DICK). I'll be happy to send you=20=
a=20
copy of the paper (I now have it in an e-form) if you will tell me who you a=
re.=20
It is of course available in the journal DICTIONARIES, but it is practically=
=20
impossible, apparently, to get a copy from the DSNA, which is not a part of=20
JSTOR (but should be), and a lot of libraries don't get DICTIONARIES (though=
they=20
should)!

My own first recollection of the popularly pejorative SUCK comes from a=20
message written on a rest-room wall, something to the effect, "The Universe=20=
sucks!"=20
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.=20
> Send me a copy if you can
>=20
> The first time I heard the now familiar verb "suck" meaning "to be highly=20
> objectionable, inferior, unsatisfactory, etc." was in the spring of 1964.=20=
It=20
> became common rather quickly. (The earlier equivalent was "stink," at that=
time=20
> still thought moderately offensive by some parents.)
>=20
> I've never found an earlier cite OR even a seemingly reliable placing of=20
> this usage any earlier; in a Bildungsroman, for example, or a long-delayed=
WW II=20
> novel. Even "seemingly unreliable" examples are rare.
>=20
> No one I've asked has any recollection of=A0 hearing it much before I did,=
=20
> though the earliest "attestations" are uniformly from the NYC area.
>=20
> Did anyone on the list learn it earlier than 1964?=A0 If not, what happene=
d in=20
> 1963-64 that might have brought to national attention?
>=20



---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Y! Messenger - Communicate in real time. Download now.