USA Today on "sucks "

[Lal Zimman]

On Sep 29, 2005, at 10:12 PM, MiRobin Webster wrote:

>>> What has always been interesting to me is that SUCK occurs in so
>>> many other
>>> expressions, including pejorative ones, in which no one ever
>>> thinks of
>>> fellatio--so why do they often think of the connection in the
>>> environment,
>>> "Yankees Suck"?
>>>
>>
>>
>> As with other heated sports rivalries, the discourse of the
>> Yankees/Red
>> Sox rivalry often alludes to imagery of sexual domination/
>> humiliation. Cf.
>> last year's taunt, "Who's your daddy?"
>>
>> --Ben Zimmer
>>
>
> I haven't seen -- though I haven't yet searched any tomes, Brewer's
> and
> Oxford and so forth -- any pejorative sense of "suck" that didn't seem
> (to me) to be reasonably related to fellatio and homophobia. I don't
> claim to have seen the fellative connection documented either, mind
> you;
> it just "seems obvious", if you'll allow my intuition its say here.
>
> In general Anglophonic culture, you know:
> homosexuality is bad, homosexual acts are bad, fellatio is bad,
> sucking
> is bad, whatever sucks is bad.

I can only speak for myself here, but I regularly say that things
suck and never mean anything even remotely literal by it. It wasn't
until I was about 17 that I found out that it had a history of being
interpreted sexually (when my father was surprised by my open and
regular use of the word) and I had actually forgotten that fact until
this thread started again. If I'm at all typical, I would guess that
"suck"'s semantics has shifted to the point where younger speakers,
at least, are unaware of the sexual connotations of the word.

My feeling is reinforced right now by the fact that the word is used
freely by many young queer people who might be quick to point out the
homophobia in statments like "That's so gay" (to mean the same thing
as "that sucks".) (Though Ron Butters also pointed out why it might
not be a homophobia issue.)


-Lal