Antedating of "Suck"

[Joel S. Berson]

Jon, are you arguing that the transitive "explicitly sexual sense"
has to have a whole person as the direct object ("sucked him/her"),
and disallowing that a part of the person be the direct object
("sucked it", as in the quotation provided)?  Seems too fine a
distinction for my tastes.

Joel

At 6/27/2010 02:19 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>A sexual context but not specifically a "sexual sense."
>
>An explicitly "sexual sense," to my way of thinking, would have to be either
>intransitive or have a personal direct object. Cf.:
>
>ca1866 _The Romance of Lust_ 26 (rpt. N.Y.: Grove Press, 1968) : To try
>again to fuck her as well as suck her.
>1975 Joseph Wambaugh _The Choirboys_ 301 (rpt. N.Y.: Dell, 1976) : Look, do
>you suck or not?
>
>HDAS files has an intrans. ex. from 1951.
>
>
>JL
>
>On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 1:11 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject:      Antedating of "Suck"
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > A website at www.londonlives.org has a very interesting searchable corpus
> > of manuscripts and printed materials relating to "Crime, Poverty,
> and Social
> > Policy in the Metropolis" between 1690 and 1800.  Here is a
> citation for the
> > verb "suck" in its sexual sense, much before the 1928 first use in the
> > Oxford English Dictionary (but note 1891 citation in OED s.v.
> _cocksucker_):
> >
> >
> > 1772 _Old Bailey Proceedings_ 9 Sept. (www.londonlives.org)   John Gray <
> > no role > . Crook was brought to our watch-house, in Swan-yard, on Monday
> > morning, by Dennis; Crook said that on the 3d of September he left off work
> > in the evening, about seven o'clock; went to the Red Lion in Moorfields, to
> > drink a pint of beer; that just as he had drunk the beer, Gibson
> came in and
> > sat down by him; that Gibson asked him to drink with him; that when he
> > called for another pint, he asked him if he knew Dick that had lived there;
> > said he, he had a fine - fit to do Mrs. - ; he said after that, he went out
> > at the door to make water, and Gibson followed him, and said,
> what sort of a
> > c - k have you got? Dick was just such another slim young man as
> you; let me
> > teel it; which he did; he said it was not so big as his; that then he took
> > him down to the vault, forced him down on the seat, onbuttoned
> his breeches,
> > then worked him till he made it come, and then sucked it; that he worked it
> > again s!
> >  ometime; that then he pressed him very close, called him his dear, hugged
> > him and squeezed him and sat down, put his hand behind him, and put it into
> > his b - e, and worked up and down till he hurt him vastly, and he believed
> > made him bleed.
> >
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
> > Editor
> > YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS (Yale University Press)
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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