s---k pot, 1805 (?)

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:04 PM -0400 9/7/10, Ronald Butters wrote:
>See Johnson's DICTIONARY: "STINKPOT: an artificial composition
>offensive to the smell"
>
>The sense that STINK was thought of as somewhat vulgar is amply
>attested. One typical example, from the Boy Scouts journal (BOYS'
>LIFE, October 1920, p13):
>
>[father writing to his son, speaking of tho odor of tobacco that the
>son seems to have acquired]: "Your Ma says stink is vulgar, maybe it
>is; but it's good plain English and it describes that poison gas you
>seemed to be carrying around with you, better than any such
>lady-like word as smell."
>
>The expression, "That stinks!" was surely held in even greater
>disrepute--until "That sucks!" came along in the 1960s and reminded
>blue-noses of fellatio (though they seem not to have had the same
>sense of "That sucks wind" and "Don't be a sucker"--probably because
>they used those expressions themselves in their youth), at which
>time STINK seems to have ameliorated.

...although "That stinks wind" and "Don't be a stinker" are
respectively impossible and unrelated to the sucky versions.   (It
may be true that there's a stinker born every minute, but that's
surely a different proposition than the one concerning suckers.)

LH

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