SUX

Mon Sep 27 00:25:24 UTC 2004

I think "sucks" must have had a sexual origin, and here is why.

    "Suck" was at some point an innovational term.  As a novelty, it "assumably" had to carry some powrful meaning or connotation that its primary competition ("stink") could not deliver. While not a "taboo" term, "stink" had powerful sensory associations.  When somebody said, of a movie for example, "It stunk!" that seemed to be at least as condemnatory as "It was lousy!" (Like bad, bad smells, lice were an imaginable loathsome reality.)  One reacted "at some level" to the idea that the objectionable thing was like a ghastly odor - so bad that one had to escape or vomit, for example.  (With "lousy," it seemed to crawl with communicable lice - and one had better get away from it.)

Every American, of course, was familiar with "sucker"; one was born every minute and none ws to be given an even break.  A "sucker" was a fool, a dupe, a victim; in other words, a person one could feel superior to.  I doubt that many speakers were able to dream up a likely semantic origin for "sucker."  It certainly could not be related to the almost unspeakably offensive "c-cks-cker," an epithet many Americans, it would seem, had never heard.  If they had, they knew that it was such a semantic H-bomb that the innocent "sucker," dupe, couldn't possibly be connected. If it were, "sucker" too would be a "taboo" term.   (I think we should start calling such items "quasi-" or "semi-taboo," but that's another thread.)

Other conceivable contributors to a negative aura around the verb "suck" might have included "suck hind tit," but "You suck!" carried a lot more punch than some reference to being last in line, or last in favor. "Suck hind tit," moreover, was hardly a central idiom in everyday English in the 1950s. No such utterance as "*You bastard! You suck hind tit!" has been adduced, and one doubts that it ever will be.

No one wanted to be "sucker-punched," but I cannot see any grounds here for the development, "You/he/she/it sucks."

In recent decades, "suck" has come to be uttered rather blandly; but my recollection is that when it was used forty years ago it was generally stressed almost explosively.  If something "stunk," well, that level of crap was routine. If it "sucked," that was godawful. In my school, as I think I mentioned previously, it was the toughest-talking kids who seemed to use it.

The missing link in all of this, and to me the likely point of semantic change, occurred in men's room graffiti of the '50s and presumably earlier.  It was not uncommon to see  messages of the form "So-and-so sucks!" scrawled in public restrooms.  Whether "So-and-So" was male or female, few youngsters over the age of eleven (or less) could fail to understand what was meant, and that the officially nice world of TV, birthday parties, backyard barbecues, and first dates regarded that practice as one of the most disgustingly depraved things a person of either sex could be involved with.

That said - and perhaps some of the under-thirties out there may find it hard to believe -
the verb "suck" packed a hell of a punch when it was suddenly associated with the meaning "highly offensive; disgusting, etc."  "You suck!" could well have precipitated as many prison knife fights as any comparable use of ethnic epithets or anything else, including the deadly duo "m.f. / c.s." themselves.

Even in the early to mid-90s when "suck"'s explosive force had been greatly weakened, some conservative parental groups objected to its occurrence on TV as just too vulgar for their homes. Members of these groups, I feel certain, were not thinking that it referred to "suckers," "sucker punches," "sucking hind tit," or anything so bland as that.

Without stronger evidence to the contrary, I retain my primal assumption, that "suck" originally carried strong associations of what was widely regarded as perversion, and that it most likely arose as a deliberately provocative imputation of active homosexuality.

JL

RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
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In a message dated 9/25/04 5:40:09 PM, wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM writes:

>=20
> My impression back then, as well as=A0 now,=A0 was that the word related t=
o oral=20
> sex rather than to any of the possible phrases you mention, most of which=20=
I=20
> never heard in those days.=A0 In that dim period, girls never said it and=20=
some=20
> became deeply offended when the word (like other taboo vocabulary) was=20
> uttered off-handedly in their presence.
>=20

I don't think there is any question but what people use more taboo words=20
today than in, say, the 1940s, though I understand that you are saying that=20=
that=20
was the case, just that it was not a "golden age."

I have been fascinated for years with the perception that "X suck(s)" IN ITS=
=20
ORIGIN carried the meaning 'X performs oral sex' (or, more accurately, ' X=20
performs fellatio'). Given that "suck" was used for so many years in all of=20=
the=20
ways that I outlined in my earlier posting, how could the pejorative use the=
=20
the 1960s and beyond NOT be viewed as, in a major way, an extension of the=20
already-existing, nearly identical, uses? This is not to say that, say, SUCK=
ER=20
PUNCH or DON'T BE A SUCKER--both of which are amply docuemented in the 1950s=
and=20
1960s--could not also brought forth the image of fellatio to the minds of=20
people who had one or another kind of interest in fellatio.=20

As we all know, slang is rarely something that is invented by one person on=20=
a=20
particular day in a particular place with a particular neat, tight semantic=20
schema in mind. The late Thomas Creswell was pretty convinced that "X suck(s=
)"=20
could ONLY have arisen as a shortening of "X suck(s) cock" (he was=20
particularly fond of associating it with "X suck(s) big donkey dicks!" as I=20=
reall). This=20
has always struck me as rather unscientific in its narrowness, much as I lov=
ed=20
and admired Tom.

I was amused in my adolescent years by my grandmother's assertion that oral=20
sex was invented by the French and introduced into the USA by men who had=20
discovered the practice during World War I and had come home insisting upon=20=
such=20
favors from their wives. While I felt even in those days that I had fairly s=
olid=20
empirical evidence that suggested my grandmother was wrong, her perceptions=20
do indicate to me that oral sex was such a taboo in the earlier parts of the=
=20
20th century that many people really DIDN'T know about it, and those who did=
did=20
not speak about it very freely. People could say "Bill is such a sucker!" an=
d=20
not be perceived as intending any reference to oral sex, and for such people=
=20
"Bill sucks!" would have been equally innocuous. "Bill sucks!" would not hav=
e=20
to mean 'Bill sucks cocks any more than "Bill is such a sucker!" has to mean=
=20
'Bill is such a cocksucker!' The only difference is that the noun form almos=
t=20
certainly predates the verb form, and the verb form seems to have entered th=
e=20
language at about the time that people became -- publically, at least -- mor=
e=20
willing to openly discuss oral sex (and perhaps more preoccupied as well).

In short, it would be silly to believe that "X suck(s)" is UNRELATED to=20
'fellatio', but it also seems to me scientifically unsound to maintain that=20=
"X=20
suck(s)" MEANS or ORIGINALLY MEANT 'X performs fellatio', any more than "Bil=
l is a=20
sucker" MEANS or ORIGINALLY MEANT 'Bill performs fellatio'.=20

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