"this sucks" (and more)
Jonathan Lighter
wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Tue Apr 26 17:18:40 UTC 2011
Sorry for the typos in my message. I thought I'd removed them.
But this gives me the opportunity to remind everyone that by last summer the
most popular songs on earth were all called "Fuck You!"
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2010/08/top_ten_songs_n.php
Of course I'm exaggerating. But by how much? By how much *really*?
JL
On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 12:22 PM, Baker, John <JMB at stradley.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
> Subject: Re: "this sucks" (and more)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Eighteenth century readers presumably had no problem with the
> long s, but modern OCR software does. It can make older text searches
> difficult. There is an old proverb that states, IIRC, "Who never loved
> a woman, sucked a sow." Misreading the long s makes the concept even
> more striking.
>
> Since bees do it high up in the air, I would think that members
> of the Mile High Club would consider Jon's version of the quote as a
> possible motto.
>
>
> John Baker
>
>
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