SUX

Mon Sep 27 17:15:11 UTC 2004

Since I haven't seen Ron's paper yet, I somehow managed to overlook "ass is sucking/sucks wind" as a pejorative "suck" phrase.  Thanks to dInIs for reminding me.

This one certainly carries the necesary offensive connotations, particularly since it also appears with "asshole" as a frequent variant.  It was also known prior to 1945, if WWII novelists can be trusted and presumably well before that if dInIs's recollections of his father's usage (not "hazy," I presume) are accurate.

Yet Occam's Razor - not always trustworthy, but a useful starting point - suggests the following.  If "So-and-so sucks!" was a common men's room graffiti (and unless I'm really losing it it was); and if fellational utterances using the "s" word were known to be regarded as beyond the pale in everyday discourse; and if "suck" = be disgusting, etc. is first noticeable in the speech of tough-talking young men who prided themselves in disregarding conventional semantic "taboos"  (many GI's in Germany being virtual paradigm cases of this); and if "suck" was widely understood by first-time hearers as derived from fellatio; it would then seem inductively most likely that the sexual reference was indeed central. Unless, of course, better evidence of an as-yet unspecifiable kind is produced.

Of course this is strongly subjective, but I cannot see "sucker," etc., evolving into "You/he/she/it sucks" by any stretch of my imagination.  If, in fact, thatIS what happened, let me suggest that we would never know about it because almost as soon as the innovator(s) uttered the new phrase, their interlocutors would be most likely to misunderstand it as a reference to a societally reviled act.  Thus, the "semantic disconnect" would be so close the point of origin that the semantic origin should be impossible to determine.

The verb in "suck wind," on the other hand, is at least to me a conceivable candidate, particularly since early published exx. tend to show it already being used figuratively to mean "be frightened" or "not know what you're talking about."  But if this were the true origin, we would expect to find early examples of the fuller phrase "*This/ That/ It really really sucks wind."

Has anybody encountered such a usage?

The principle Connie endorses is certainly correct in general. But in this case, I believe that sexual "suck" was, on available evidence, sufficient all by itself, in the social context of the fifties (not to mention earlier!) to generate "suck" = "be disgusting."  Any relationship to the correspondingly insufficient (in my view) "sucking wind" would be coincidental, though to some degree reinforcing.

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=20Re:=20SUX?=
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Connie Eble points out in her book, it is rarely possible to point with=20
certainty to one and only one origin for a slang term. The single-minded=20
preoccupation that many people--especially straight people--have with fellat=
io is=20
somewhat amusing.

I mention "your ass sucks wind" in my DICTIONARIES article, as a part of the=
=20
pre-1960s constelation of sucky words. I never heard the "sissy-stick"=20
continuation. My father used the shorter version (born in Iowa whatever year=
it was=20
that the Titanic sank).

In a message dated 9/27/04 10:54:30 AM, preston at MSU.EDU writes:

> >OK, I'm old enough.
>=20
> >I'm with Ron in this case (oh rarity!) in pointing to non-fellatio
> >pejorative "sucks", and not just those associated with "sucker,'
> >(i.e., one easily taken in).
>=20
> One=A0 such usage, which dates to my early sporting life (basketball,
> football, baseball - that kind of sporting life) had to do with the
> out-of-shape kid who was left behind sucking wind (or air), surely a
> non-sexual a reference to gasping and always clearly negative.
>=20
> I suspect such usage may have given rise to some more etymologically
> mysterious expressions of my youth (e.g., "Your ass sucks wind" often
> with the elaborate addition of "through a sissy-stick") [NB: Us
> he-boys of the Louisville area has a grade-school usage of "sissy"
> which had no sexual overtones, though a deeper look at it would
> reveal homophobic undercurrents; a "sissy-stick," by the way, was a
> straw; something a girl would drink from; a real he-boy would swig
> soft drink out of a bottle, of course.]
>=20
> On the other hand, I do not doubt at all the contamination of other
> pejorative "sucks:" with oral sex "sucks," but, like Ron, I think we
> should be careful of jumping to this conclusion.
>=20
> dInIs
>=20
> PS: I haven't said "Your ass sucks wind through a sissy stick for
> more than fifty years. Thanks for the opportunity to remember.
> >
>=20
>=20
>=20
>=20
> >I started this thread to dredge up evidence concerning the early
> >career of a now salient Americanism.=A0 Are Wilson, Ron, and I really
> >the only ones aged enough to have something to contribute?
> >
> >That WOULD be scary.
> >
> >JL
> >
> >RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
> >---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >-----------------------
> >Sender: American Dialect Society
> >Poster: RonButters at AOL.COM
> >Subject: =3D?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=3D20=3DA0=3D20=3DA0=3D20=3DA0=3D20Re:=3D20S=
UX?=3D
> >
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------=
-----
> >
> >In a message dated 9/26/04 8:55:35 PM, wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM writes:
> >
> >
> >>=A0 Even in the early to mid-90s when "suck"'s explosive force had been=20
> greatly
> >>=A0 weakened, some conservative parental groups objected to its occurren=
ce=20
> on TV
> >>=A0 as just too vulgar for their homes. Members of these groups, I feel=20
> certain,
> >>=A0 were not thinking that it referred to "suckers," "sucker punches,"=20
> "sucking
> >>=A0 hind tit," or anything so bland as that.
> >>
> >
> >Precisely. But this sort of retro-association is not evidence of ORIGIN,=20
> any
> >more than any other folk etymology would be. Parents in general tend to=20
> assume
> >the worst about the practices of the young, if only to protect their
> >offspring from any possible infelicity.
> >
> >Similarly, putative etymologies based on it-stands-to-reason logic and ha=
zy
> >remembrances of what one's reactions may have been to "as-I-recall"
> >writings on
> >public toilet walls are interesting as expressions of opinion, but they=20
> don't
> >really constitute scientific evidence, do they? The burden of proof, it=20
> seems
> >to me, must lie with those who would dismiss any connection with the
> >pejorative uses of SUCK that were already in the language in favor
> >of assertions of an
> >exclusive connection with fellatio. I certainly admit that such evidence
> >might be hard to come by, given the taboo nature of the proposed
> >origin and the
> >difficulty of finding evidence for early uses of ANY slang term. But the=20
> fact
> >that such evidence is not readily available is certainly not a valid reas=
on=20
> to
> >conclude that it certainly must exist.
> >
> >__________________________________________________
> >Do You Yahoo!?
> >Tired of spam?=A0 Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> >http://mail.yahoo.com
>=20
>=20
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> University Distinguished Professor
> Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic,
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 Asian and African Languages
> Wells Hall A-740
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA
> Office: (517) 353-0740
> Fax: (517) 432-2736
>=20
>=20

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