Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 17:12:14 EST
From: RonButters RonButters[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM
Subject: THE UNIVERSE SUCKS . . .
In a message dated 4/1/98 1:15:50 PM, Tom Cresswell wrote:
What was in the mind of the clever teenager(?) who first said "This X sucks"
cannot, of course, be known. But the frequency and currency of _cocksucker_
and
_to suck cock_ are so well established and widespread in 20th century male
oral
(please excuse) usage that the likelihood that any other source underlies the
expression "This X sucks" is quite remote.
Thanks to everyone who has written in to describe their mental associations
for early uses of THIS X SUCKS. I am particularly grateful for the remembered
THIS X SUCKS DONKEY DICKS and YOU SUCK DONKEY DICKS, which afford exactly the
kind of transitional data that illuminate the historical evolution of THIS X
SUCKS. Just to be clear, I have never contended that such phrases played no
part in the slang etymology; what I am arguing against is the assumption that
THIS X SUCKS historically derives _primarily_ or _exclusively_ from THIS X
SUCKS DICKS/COCKS. What is lacking, moreover, is written records of these
expressions from the 1960s and 1970s. I have no doubt that they could be
found; in fact, the DONKEY expressions are familiar to me from the 1950s and
1960s.
Thanks, too, to Tom Creswell for reminding us of the courageous data-recording
practices of Dr. Reed in the 1920s. I own a copy of Reed's little book, and I
know that SUCK COCK 'fellatio' was common slang in the 1920s (and probably
earlier). The Reed data is interesting, but it doesn't really speak to the
question at hand, since none of the examples that Creswell/Reed cites give us
the putative transitional phrase *THIS X SUCKS COCK/DICK. To recapitulate,
what we have historically is the following:
Stage 1 (1920s-1960s) DOES ANYONE WANT TO SUCK MY COCK?/I LIKE TO SUCK COCK as
well as THIS X SUCKS EGGS (WIND, ROPE)/ YOU SUCK EGGS (WIND, ROPE)
Stage 2 (1960s- ) DOES ANYONE WANT TO SUCK MY COCK?/I LIKE TO SUCK COCK
together with THIS X SUCKS EGGS (WIND, ROPE, _DONKEY DICKS_)/ YOU SUCK EGGS
(WIND, ROPE, DONKEY DICKS_) as well as THIS X SUCKS/YOU X SUCK.
The important thing to my mind is that, when people started saying THIS X
SUCKS in the late 1960s, they did _not_ go through a period in which the full
utterance THIS X SUCKS COCK was any more in evidence than THIS X SUCKS EGGS
(WIND, ROPE). Granted that many people who heard "This sucks!" in 1969 would
have been reminded of 'fellatio': people expect to be shocked by slang, and
they fear lthe worst when they hear new expressions from young people. But it
seems to me nonetheless lexicographically simplistic and inadequate to assert,
as Tom does, that "the likelihood that any other source [than SUCK COCK/DICK]
underlies the expression 'This X sucks' is quite remote." The popularity of
fellatio to the contrary not withstanding, these other recorded (and used
slang) expressions were around both during the genesis of THIS X SUCKS and
before, and not to note them as part of the polygentic source material for
THIS X SUCKS just seems to me to do an injustice to the rich complexity of
lexicographical evolution. (Again, I would cite also the possible contribution
of the parallel expression THIS X STINKS.)
My own personal anecdote may help to clarify my point of view. My first
encounter with slang intransitive SUCK was in a note on the wall of a Duke
University rest-room (c.1968) that was known for its intellectual bent--long
philosophical arguments were often inscribed there. One day I noticed that
someone had written simply, "The Universe Sucks!" I was totally baffled. What
could this mean? I recalled my father's expression, "That sucks wind." I
recalled the expression, "That sucks eggs." I concluded that the writer did
not approve of the Universe.
I definitely knew about fellatio in 1968, and I suppose that in general I
think of fellatio as much as the next man. I knew, also, that "You suck big
donkey dicks" was a possible insult. But I honestly did not at that time
mentally connect "The Universe Sucks!" with fellatio. How could a statement
about the Universe be in any way related to the penis (of a donkey)? The
thought truly never entered my mind. (Nor has 'fellatio' ever before today
entered my mind when that funny little man from Texas talked about "the loud
sucking sound of jobs" being drained off to Mexico, though now that I think of
it I guess it sounds pretty suggestive--did Ross Perot have fellatio in mind?)
Maybe my initiation into (THIS) X SUCKS is a circumstance that Tom would
describe as "remote": Duke students sometimes wear a tee-shirt that says on
t
======================================================================
From: Automatic digest processor (4/1/98)
To: Recipients of ADS-L digests
ADS-L Digest - 30 Mar 1998 to 31 Mar 1998 98-04-01 00:00:27
This message contains more text than QuickMail can display. The entire message
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There are 14 messages totalling 676 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. "Think" again
2. Racquetball; "I (heart) NY" logogram
3. THIS X SUCKS and the historical record
4. cool beans
5. The Appalachian Dialect: help wanted
6. You're welcome! No problem! another query
7. THIS X SUCKS and fellatio (2)
8. Gooseberry fool references
9. gooseberry fool/sauce
10. CFP WECOL (2)
11. THIS X SUCKS
12. "The Big Apple"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 03:54:21 EST
From: Bapopik Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM
Subject: "Think" again
"And then I'd think, and think some more."
--"If I Only Had a Brain," WIZARD OF OZ.
I haven't yet checked an IBM book (BIG BLUE is the title of one of them),
but this is perhaps the best treatment of "THINK." It's from the NEW YORKER,
"Talk of the Town," 26 March 1949, pp. 19-20:
THINK
LEONARD LYONS printed an item a while back to the effect that employees of the
International Business Machines Corporation had just given Thomas J. Watson,
the head of the firm, the biggest THINK sign Watson had ever seen. This
characteristic Lyons scoop-tease left many questions un answered: How big
_is_ the THINK sign? How big a THINK sign had Mr. Watson previously seen?
Are there other, bigger THINK signs, which Mr. Watson hasn't happened to see?
We decided we had better stop in at I.B. M. World Headquarters, at 590 Madison
Avenue (I live three blocks away--ed.), and investigate Mr. Watson's relations
with what was once a shy and fairly elusive little intransitive verb. It
turned out that Mr. Watson was off thinking on the day of our visit, but we
were kindly taken in hand by Mr. H. T. Rowe, advertising manager of I.B.M.,
who assured us at once that there was nothing whatever to the Lyons story, and
indicated, moreover, that Mr. Watson has all the THINK signs that he finds
necessary.
Mr. Watson has been diligently surrounding himself and his co-workers
with the THINK exhortation ever since 1911; at which time he was in charge of
sales and advertising for the National Cash Register Company. According to a
reverent eyewitness account published long afterward in THINK, one of I.B.M.'s
house organs, it was in that historic year that Mr. Watson concluded a pep
talk to his staff by saying, "The trouble with us, the trouble with the
agents, the trouble with everybody is that we don't--" He then turned and
wrote in blue chalk on a blackboard the single, galvanic word "THINK." A few
days later, THINK signs blossomed out all over the plant, and when Mr. Watson
joined I.B.M., then known as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, he
brought THINK along with him.
At World Headquarters, we noticed a THINK sign on nearly every wall and
on every employee's desk. Mr. Rowe told us that I.B.M. orders them by the
thousand from a plastics company in New Jersey. People keeps writing in for
THINK signs, and I.B.M. is always evangelistically delighted to equip them
with some. "We gave away nine thousand THINK signs last year," Mr. Rowe said,
with evident satisfaction. The standard I.B.M. THINK sign comes in two
sizes--one seven inches long and three inches high, the other fourteen inches
by five. The smaller model can be either hung on a wall or, with a special
wooden stand, set up on a desk. The word "THINK" is printed in Cheltenham
Bold capitals, black on a white background. We asked Mr. Rowe if executives
are issued gold or platinum signs, and he said that, on the contrary, complete
democracy has always prevailed in this regard. To prove his point, he led us
on tiptoe into Mr. Watson's office, and there, sure enough, we saw two plain
old democratic THINK signs hanging on the wall and another one on his desk.
Mr. Rwoe's desk happens to boast a THINK sign of Lucite and silver. This
is merely a sample prepared by a manufacturer who had hoped to take on the
THINK-sign contract, Mr. Rowe explained. "No deal," he added. "People come
in here with all sorts of THINK schemes, of course. They want to put THINK on
bookends, paperweights, lapel pins, rings, bill clips, automobile-fender
reflectors, wallets, blotters--everything. (Sounds like the Big Apple--ed.)
We discourage such ideas." Besides the regulat THINK signs, I.B.M. has
several large THINK banners, which are hung behind the speakers' table at
company banquets. The magic word also appears on the riser of the top step
leading into the lobby of the I.B.M. school, at Endicott, New York; the
inscriptions on the other risers are, in descending order, "OBSERVE,"
"DISCUSS," "LISTEN," and "READ." "THINK" is stamped in gold on the leather
covers of pocket notebooks, called THINK books, that are distributed free to
employees of I.B.M. and, like the signs, to anyone who writes in for them.
Approximately a hundred thousand THINK books were handed out last year. THINK
books and THINK signs have been printed in foreign languages by I.B.M.'s
offices in seventy-nine countries, but World Headquarters doesn't know just
how the word looks in Estonian, say, or Iraqi. I.B.M. and Mr. Watson have,
naturally, no legal claims on THINK, and in the last couple of years the local
Board of Transportation has taken to painting the word in big red letters here
and there in subway stations around town. The favorite spot appears to be the
doors that give access to sump pumps. Heaven, Mr. Rowe observes, knows why.