Date:    Mon, 23 Mar 1998 07:54:59 -0500
<br>From:    "Daniel R. Melamed"  daniel.melamed[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALE.EDU 
<br>Subject: So much for the transitive form of this verb
<br>
<br>On a recent exam in my basic music history course, I asked students to
<br>write about an early 19th-century critic's colorful description of a
<br>performance by the violin virtuoso Paganini.  The translated quotation
<br>read, in part:
<br>
<br>"Is this a living being who wishes to delight his audience at the moment of
<br>his dissolution in the art-arena with his last quivering gasp, like a dying
<br>gladiator?  Or is it a corpse that has risen from the grave--a vampire, who
<br>would suck, if not the blood from our hearts, at least the money from our
<br>pockets?"
<br>
<br>One student wrote in response:
<br>
<br>"The performer may "delight" or "suck" but either way entertain."
<br>
<br>In this view, the performer might not "suck blood . . ." or "suck money . .
<br>." but merely "suck."  This suggests that some people don't look for a
<br>direct object of "suck" used this way.  Maybe that's why it is no longer
<br>necessarily considered obscene--an implied off-color object ("That sucks [
<br>]") doesn't even figure in (younger?) people's use of the phrase.
<br>
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<br>Daniel R. Melamed
<br>Department of Music, Yale University
<br>daniel.melamed[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]yale.edu
<br>http://pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~melamed
<br>(203) 432-2985    fax: (203) 287-9820
<br>