speaking of euphemisms (and the need for them)

[Laurence Horn]

A locally celebrated story concerns the lowly Mets, whose sometime infielder Jordany Valdespin was recently sent down to the minors by manager Terry Collins and was not thrilled by the move, as this blog report of the relevant events makes clear:

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Jordany Valdespin calls Mets manager Terry Collins ‘[expletive] sucker’ on way to minors
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/jordany-valdespin-calls-mets-manager-terry-collins-expletive-144958490.html

...

Mostly, though, he has been more trouble than he was worth.

Valdespin helped prove that very point Saturday, after the Mets told him that he had been demoted to the minor leagues, by reportedly lashing  out in response. The New York Post seems an appropriate place to go for what happened:

'According to a Mets source, the volatile utilityman, upon learning he had been demoted to Triple-A Las Vegas on Saturday, got into a confrontation with Terry Collins, during which he called the manager a[n] “[expletive] sucker.”…'
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a[n] "all-day sucker", perhaps?

I do like that "a[n]", as a morphophonemic device for encouraging us to decide for ourselves what the expletive was (although we're pretty sure we know), or maybe just to pronounce the epithet as "an expletive sucker".

LH

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