"sucks" revisited

[David Bowie]

From:    Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>

> My questions are these:

> 1) Why does no one, apparently, find "Hummer," connoting, as it does,
> a particular method of fellatio, the "Hawaiian hum-job" of the
> mid-Twentieth Century United States, offensive?

I don't know if it's a current term, at least in all regions. My first
introduction to the term was someone telling a story about his parents
getting shocked laughter when his father, talking about the
radio-controlled model car he'd just gotten, said "Your mother gave me a
Hummer for Christmas!"

This was right about the same time as i first heard (read: remember
hearing) Bob Rivers's "Little Hummer Girl", a Christmas parody song
centered around the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Until i heard the story,
the song title made no real sense to me--though i got that "hum" was
being used to mean "perform oral sex on someone", that was figured out
from context, not knowing the word.

Of course, now that i've learned this term, i find the billboards for
Orlando's Hummer dealership (one of the highest-selling in the nation,
presumably because of all the mountains here in Florida) advertising H3s
as Hummers "Now in a smaller size!" more than amusing.

<snip>

--
David Bowie                                         http://pmpkn.net/lx
     Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
     house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
     chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org