[QUOTE=astro]
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?
[/QUOTE]
IIRC years ago, in the mid west, a sugar tit was a scrap of cloth tied up in a little bundle of 1 tsp sugar) to quiet babies from crying.
Also to shut up older kids pestering the adults as in "Do you want me to make you a sugar tit?
Highlights of which were just offered on DVD at a nice discount by Deadalus Books.
“Sugar Tits,” now with added Riboflavin! Kids love them 'cause they taste so good. Moms love them 'cause they’re so good for them!
Well yeah but now it’s Corn Syrup Tits. No wonder the officer was offended. It’s like Mel was calling her out-of-date.
Mrs. Mahaloth has informed me that a guy(yes…a guy) she knew in college wanted people to call him “Sugar Tits”.
He was weird, my wife adds.
In Married with Children, Marcy used to call her first husband Steve “Sugar Tush”. And in those tight 80s pants…never mind.
Never heard Sugar Tits either. But I do know that it, like any other phrase with the word “tits” in it, is not a good thing to call someone who is in the process of arresting you.
[QUOTE=jimbeam]
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.)
[/QUOTE]
I’ve heard a different explanation of what a sugar tit is: a sugar cube tied in a handkerchief, given to an infant to suck on.
Baby bottles weren’t really practical until the 20th century.
Yes, I have been.
No, I don’t care for it.
If I want to be demeaning to some female office manager or similar type that thinks she is more important than she really is, I’ll start by saying, “Look here, sweet tits…” It’s always an effective start to an insult. I’ve also been escorted to the door of various establishments.
Just the butter and sugar mixed in a piece of cloth kind. It’s mentioned in Gone with the Wind (the book) when the newly widowed Scarlett arrives in Atlanta with her maid and her baby. She tells Prissy to give him sugar tit that Mammy gave them to shut up the boy.
Indeed, from Chapter 8:
I’ve been calling my wife Sugar Tits ever since Mel enlightened me. She thinks it’s funny now, but I could see it getting old pretty soon. 
I’ve used the phrase many times but only jokingly. I dimly recall picking it up from a Leslie Nielson film where he was in court addressing the a woman on the stand.
[QUOTE=Walloon]
I’ve heard a different explanation of what a sugar tit is: a sugar cube tied in a handkerchief, given to an infant to suck on.
Baby bottles weren’t really practical until the 20th century.
[/QUOTE]
No doubt about there being other “types” of sugar tits. That was kinda my point. I know of two or three things that have been referred to as a sugar tit. It was simply a way to quiet the baby or coax a baby to nurse etc. using various sugary substitutes instead of or applied on a womans breast.
There is no doubt that the term was used in “The Cowboys”. What exactly the cook was going to use is anyone guess since he didn’t actually do it. He was simply teasing the boys.
The more recent term of a sugar tit was used by my father and his generation. I recall him telling about an uncle who breast fed until he was four or five years old. Apparently this was not as uncommon or as strange as it may sound to us now.
Dad claims it was not unusual for a child to nurse that long if he was the baby, (no younger siblings). He joked about having to get Uncle Willy off his momma with a “sugar tit”. I remember him saying about a kid one time “look at that boy running around with that sugar tit”. The boy was much too old and it WAS a bottle.
Around here, if you wanted to insult one of your buddies, you’d joke about him going home to get his sugar tit. That could get you into a fight. Everybody knew what you just called him. Ya know what I mean?
sincerely~ JB