"this sucks" (and more)

[Joel Berson]

Another story is the episode of "Vicar of Dibley" wherein the ditzy verger has
been asked to read at the next service from an old Bible.  The episode ends with
her about to recite (I may not have the phrase exactly) "Christ's succor".

Joel



----- Original Message ----
From: Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Sent: Tue, April 26, 2011 9:46:28 AM
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "this sucks" (and more)

A fairly well-known academic legend tells of a professor who belatedly (and, it
now seems, archaically) asks a secretary to type and duplicate a poem for use as
a handout to accompany his lecture, and he gives her an old facsimile text (in
some versions of the legend, of Donne's "The Good Morrow"; in others, of
Shakespeare's song "Where the bee sucks, there suck I").  The secretary,
unfamiliar with the "long s," mistakes the word "suck" for "fuck" (or should I
say substitutes "suck" with "fuck"?), so that the blindly-distributed handout
shockingly reads "fuck."

--Charlie

________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of David A.
Daniel [dad at POKERWIZ.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2011 9:16 AM

Hmmm. I wonder how they told the difference... ;)
DAD
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---

Actually, if you use 18th century typography, fuck and suck are *less* than
one letter apart.

JL

On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:49 AM, David A. Daniel <dad at pokerwiz.com> wrote:

>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
>
> On sucks: the T-Shirt, bumper-sticker, book-title phrase "there is no such
> thing as gravity, the Earth sucks" goes back several decades as I recall,
> and this obviously makes reference to what one does with a straw in a
> milkshake, or what a vacuum cleaner does, or what M Lewinsky was
> accomplished in, as it is the sucking action that would draw one to Earth,
> and apparently also refers to the idea of just being bad, unpleasant or
> substandard and, well, sucky. On the other hand, today, whether or not
> someone thinks that sucks has to do strictly with fellatio probably
depends
> on the age of the person in question. Younger person - no fellatio; Older
> person - fellatio. It would be interesting to take a poll... I also think
> sucks is popular because suck and fuck are just one letter apart and thus
> both have that good old Anglo Saxon guttural, ugly-sounding clout to them,
> kind of makes them a complementary pair.
>
> On KHJ: L.A.'s KHJ was actually "Boss Radio 93". KFWB was "Channel 98,
> Color
> Radio". I don't remember either one calling itself kick-ass, but then I
> don't remember everything... They were both Top 40-type stations for a
> while, then KFWB went all news in 1968.
> DAD
>
>
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  ---
>
> On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 8:22 PM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu>
> wrote:
> >
>
http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/on-the-taboo-avoidance-patrol/
> >
>
> FWIW, in the '60's, L.A.'s Radio KHJ, Channel 98, featured not only
> "color" radio, but also "kick-ass" radio, according to its main DJ, a
> white guy who called himself "Yo' Bruthuh."
>
> At that time, that a white guy should speak so on the public airwaves
> kicked *much* ass, even in LA-LA LAnd.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 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."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org