in the suck

[Jonathan Lighter]

1997 Reverge Anselmo _The Cadillac of Six-By's_ [sic] [N.Y.: HarperCollins]
21:
The colonel made a speech: "This is the day I thank God that I belong to the
Marine Corps, and that all of you men here belong to me. We are in the Suck
as one. I will toast this day, and you will toast it with me.

The period described is the Beirut deployment of the early '80. The word
does not appear in any Vietnam-era writings that I am familiar with.

Note the leading publisher's odd pluralizing apostrophe in the title.

JL
On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 12:15 PM, Paul Frank <paulfrank at post.harvard.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Paul Frank <paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU>
> Subject:      in the suck
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "All we have to do is look at the words of junior leaders who are in
> the suck or who have returned from it."
> <http://billandbobsadventure.blogspot.com/>
>
> Urban Dictionary: "Unofficial slang term used by the Marine Corps.
> Defines any situation in and around a war time conflict where
> conditions are undesirable. Also known as 'The Shit.' "
>
> The term crops up in the movie Jarhead.
>
> I don't see it in the online OED.
>
> Paul
>
> Paul Frank
> Translator
> Chinese, German, French, Italian > English
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> paulfrank at bfs.admin.ch
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