From Mel Gibson’s little exercise in alcoholic street theatre the other day
Is this some Australian slang? It sounds like something a bad scriptwriter might dream up. It this valid street slang, or something he conjured up on the spot?
I wish!
Seriously, IIRC there was an Australian tv show on in the early '80s(late '70s maybe?) called The Prisoner of Cell Block H. It was a soap opera that took place in a women’s prison, and one of the screw’s (that’s prison talk for guards 
) nickname was Vinegar Tits. Let me tell you, it took me so long to figure out what they were saying. I kept thinking it was “pretty good tits”, but that didn’t seem quite right. . .
Can any of our friends down under back me up here?
No one has ever called me that before (no idea why, my tits seem sweet enough to me… 
), but it sounds familiar. Don’t know if I’ve read it, or seen it in a movie or what, but I’m sure I’ve heard it before.
I’m born and bred in the U.S. I used to work with a bunch of Aussies, but I don’t recall hearing any of them use it.
Also born in bred in the US, and I’ve heard the expression. Can’t recall ever hearing it used in real life.
I’ve never been called sugar tits, but I’ve been called ‘sugar britches’ many times when I lived in the American south.
Okay, so it *was *30 years ago . . .
I’ve heard it but I’m pretty sure only in cheesy movies written by bad scriptwirters. Somehow, though, the idea that Mel Gibson derives his personal dialogue from bad scriptwriters doesn’t come as a huge surprise to me.
My great-aunt Bess used this term many years ago. Only she used the singular form. She was referring to one sibling who was clearly favored above another by his mother, and said, “He sure go the sugar tit.” I thought it was a striking phrase, so I still remember it.
For the record, my great-aunt Bess was an Appalachian woman contemporaneous with my great grandfather, who called me “stout” when he meant “strong” and told me to “tote” things when he wanted me to carry or fetch them. As in “tote that bag over here.”
However, I suspect the term is much wider in use than archaic Appalachian slang.
Yes, the show was called **Prisoner ** and one of the guards was nicknamed *Vinegar Tits * by the prisoners: link
I’ve not heard the expression *sugar tits * though.
Wow that just brought up some sort of repressed memory in me.
I was never called “sugar tits” but for some reason I remember being called “sweet tits” by some boy I’d met online when I was much younger, and going all “eew eew gross!” on him and telling all my girl friends.
Hmm…I’m going to have to have a long think on what that all was about.
There’s actually a community in my little state called “Sugar Tit.”
http://www.wspa.com/midatlantic/spa/onyourside.apx.-content-articles-SPA-2006-07-19-0015.html
Yes, jokingly. It’s a very silly thing to say.
Ahhh, so that’s why the term was used on This Week in God!
Sugar tits! mmm-good
… Taken quite literally, historically it’s what they used to do when a baby wouldn’t nurse in the old days. Put some honey or molasses on the mother’s nipple to start the baby to nurse. Often a bottle with regular or sweetened milk would replace breast milk if the baby wouldn’t nurse.
As a bad joke, it was what you would call a little boy who was a sissy. He wouldn’t drink regular milk he only wanted chocolate milk…
John Wayne used the term in his movie “The Cowboys” when the boys were acting like little kids, the cook asked the Duke if he needed to fix the boys some sugar tits. (A bottle with sweet milk in it.)
Yeah, I come from an old Texas family.
Certainly not an Australian term in common use- well, not in my domain anyway. Cunctator is correct about Prisoner which was a bloody awful show. It’s closeness to real life is only reflected by my thoughts of what Big Brother would be like. (Never having watched it).
Hm. Sugar tits? I’ve said it before.
Then again, some kids called this fat kid “Missiletits” in high school. Yes, very mean.
Wow, that’s weird. I went to school with a guy who used to call me that. We were grad assistant TAs together. Believe me, at that time there was nothing sugary about me, which is why I guess it was funny. I assumed it was something he made up. He was a four-and-a-half-foot tall dude in a body brace who looked and acted like Toulouse Lautrec on speed. He’s dead now. I miss him.
I’ve never been refered to as Sugar Tits OR a Throbbibg Mattress Kitten.
I’m still not over the lack of Mattress Kitten.
Seriously, I’ve never heard anyone in my whole life, off the silver screen, utter the phrase ‘Sugar Tits’.
My great-grandmother used to make these things for babies to suck on that I think were called sugar tits, though my memory is hazy. They were cloth wrapped around sugar and something else.
Ah, they are mentioned under the “pacifier” entry at Wikipedia. I knew I wasn’t crazy.
One of my friends’ boyfriends used to call her sugar tits. He was Canadian. She didn’t really like it.
Only by people who know.