On 14 Jul 2005 at 23:18, Christopher Smith wrote: > It was only much later that I heard it applied to things, like "This > hamburger sucks!" It became clear that the expression no longer meant > what it used to mean, and just meant "bad". I noticed a similar shift > in meaning in the word "pansy", which now apparently means "not > aggressive" or "gentle-natured" with no connection at all to my > generation's association of the term with homosexuality.
That's the meaning I grew up with. The term came into common usage while I was in high school (graduated in 1980). That is, when I started high school, no one was using it, but by the time I graduated, it was commonly used (and it still referred to fellatio exclusively). I recently watched Mel Gibson in "The man without a face," which was set in 1969. The kids in the movie used "you suck" the way kids use it today, and it seemed very anachronistic to me (though I was only 7 years old in 1969). -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc All non-quoted content (c) David W. Fenton, all rights reserved _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
