"unsuck" (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Jonathan Lighter]

The earliest OED online date I see for "It sucks" (def. 15f) is 1971, I
believe in a British publication.

JL

On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 4:43 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC <
Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: "unsuck" (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> The Vietnam Graffiti Corpus also has the closely related "sux", "blows",
> "bites" and "eats".
>
>
> OED doesn't have "sux".
> Canvas # 1574c0126
> "Weiland sux"
>
> OED has fellatio sense of "blow" from 1933, and the figurative ("To be
> contemptible, tiresome, or disagreeable; = suck v. 15f.") sense from
> 1960.
>
> Canvas #1574c0014
> "The Navy blows"
>
> Canvas # 1574c0072
> "Spanky blows"
>
>
> Canvas # 1574c0173
> "New York Blows"
>
> Canvas # 1574c0229
> "Kerby Blows"
>
>
> OED has "bite" in this sense from 9/1975.
>
> Canvas #1574c0204
> "Pettiway came by last night to get a little, but no one would give him
> any becaue [sic] [he] bites"
>
>
> General/indefinite use of "eats"; other cites include "eats shit", "eats
> pussy", "eats dick", "eats cock".
>
> OED has "to practise fellatio or cunnilingus on (a person)" from 1927;
> to "eat shit" from 1930.  The sense below feels slightly different,
> somehow -- that which is being eaten is unstated (just as what is being
> sucked is often unstated).    It could be scatological or sexual, but is
> clearly bad.
>
> Canvas #1574c0013
> "Crip eats it raw"
>
>
> Canvas #1574c0043
> "Crip eats it"
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of
> > Ben Zimmer
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2011 9:42 PM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: Re: "unsuck"
> >
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> ----------------------
> > -
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: "unsuck"
> >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
> > -
> >
> > On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 10:02 PM, Ronald Butters wrote:
> > [quoting my Language Log comment]
> > >> In a 2001 article in the journal Dictionaries (PDF available here),
> Ron
> > >> Butters argued that intransitive suck owes its origin to non-vulgar
> > >> transitive uses like "suck wind/rope/eggs." He sees the fellatio
> reading
> > >> as a later development. But as I noted above, the evidence we now
> have
> > >> from Vietnam-era graffiti shows that the sexual construal was
> prominent
> > >> even in the mid- to late '60s =97 the fact that young draftees were
> > >> scribbling both "The Army sucks" and "The Army sucks dick" (and
> > >> variations thereof) undercuts the idea that the vulgarity was a
> > >> post-facto reinterpretation.
> > >
> > > Well, Ben, granted that people in Viet Nam wrote both "The Army
> sucks"
> > > and "The army sucks dick." But LONG before that, people were already
> > > saying, "The N sucks wind/rope/eggs." Isn't the usual rule of thumb
> that
> > > the earliest form is the original one? So why do you give priority
> to
> > > your dick?
> >
> > I don't discount the various non-vulgar transitives as contributing
> > factors to the "X sucks" formation. I also don't discount the
> > non-vulgar intransitive "stink" as a significant forerunner. I do,
> > however, take issue with the idea that the sexual reading of "X sucks"
> > was a construal overlaid after the fact by parents and others anxious
> > about possible vulgarity. Thanks to the Vietnam Graffiti Project, we
> > now have sufficient evidence that even in the mid- to late '60s,
> > intransitive "suck" and transitive "suck dick (etc.)" were equally
> > available as pejoratives, applied to both human and non-human
> > subjects.
> >
> > For the paper I presented at last year's ICHLL conference in Oxford
> > ("Graffiti Scrawls and Hip-Hop Calls: Coming to Grips with
> > Non-Traditional Sources for Historical Lexicography"), I surveyed all
> > 159 examples of "suck" in the VGP corpus. "Suck" takes a vulgar object
> > in 44 cases (usually some variation on "dick/cock," but also "ass" and
> > "shit" -- needless to say, no "wind/rope/eggs" in the mix). Vulgar
> > objects most often occur with human subjects, but there are a number
> > of non-human exx: subjects as diverse as "the Army," "ship travel,"
> > and "Cleveland, Ohio" could all be said to "suck dick." For this early
> > group of users, then, no clear dividing line could be drawn between
> > vulgar transitivity and non-vulgar intransitivity, since the two forms
> > alternated freely with a variety of subjects.
> >
> > At least that's how I see it.
> >
> > --bgz
> >
> > --
> > Ben Zimmer
> > http://benzimmer.com/
> >
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> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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