# Is getting 'hosed' vulgar? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 3, 2009, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-getting-hosed-vulgar/508744 "2009-09-03T14:36:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Peanuthead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peanuthead/32/360_2.png) [@Peanuthead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peanuthead)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-getting-hosed-vulgar/508744/21 "2009-09-04T01:23:19Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > “Your grandmother sucks eggs.” > > Anyway, listen to **samclem** ; he actually knows what he’s talking about. Common sense can be misleading; counterintuitive as it may be, the evidence collected by those who study this sort of thing academically does indicate that the relevant sense of “sucks” quite likely did not, in fact, originally have anything to do with fellatio. Yeah, right. It was never a euphemism, was it? They really meant suck eggs. Hmmm, chicken eggs? Duck eggs? Goose eggs? Yeah, suck those eggs while “another mule is kickin’ in your stall”. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-getting-hosed-vulgar/508744/22 "2009-09-04T01:25:31Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > What you hear nowdays doesn’t always mean that’s where it started or meant when it started. > > Case in point, the “that sucks” you hear today probably started/came from “sucks to be you” from the turn of the Century. Probably not sexual at all. > [@Bayard](#): > > No kidding? That completely surprises me. But that seems to be predicated on “sucks” having some negative meaning at the Turn of the Century. Was “sucks” used in other contexts then (other than sucking on candy or nipples or whatever)? From the OED. > [@](#): > > A sycophant; esp. a schoolboy who curries favour with teachers. Cf. SUCK v. 26e; sucker-up s.v. SUCKER n. 14. > > 1900 FARMER Public School Word-Bk. 197 Suck, subs. (University), a parasite, a toady. 1907 B. M. CROKER Company’s Servant xx. 213 He was just a suckthat’s all. 1916 JOYCE Portrait of Artist (1969) i. 11 We all know why you speak. You are McGlade’s suck. 1955 W. GADDIS Recognitions II. ii. 373 The shade of the boy whom he had not seen since they were boys together (Martin was Father Joseph’s ‘suck’) lived on the air as though they had parted only minutes before. > 11. pl. as int. Used as an expression of contempt, chiefly by children. Also in phr. sucks to you and varr. slang. > > 1913 C. MACKENZIE Sinister Street I. I. vii. 98 This kid’s in our army, so sucks! 1922 F. HAMILTON P.J.: Secret Service Boy iv. 178 ‘S’, he announced, ‘u,c,k,s,t,o,y,o,u.’ 1935 N. MITCHISON We have been Warned I. 28 Brian is a baby. Oh sucks, oh sucks on Brian. 1945 E. WAUGH Brideshead Revisited II. v. 287 It’s great sucks to Bridey. 1952 ‘C. BRAND’ London Particular xv. 191 A most regretable air of sucks to you. 1968 Melody Maker 30 Nov. 24/5 This is a rotten recordyah boo and sucks. 1974 Times 4 Mar. 9/5 Sucks boo, then, with acting like this, to that new National Theatre down the road. 1978 ‘J. LYMINGTON’ Waking of Stone ii. 45 ‘Sucks to you!’ she said..tossing her head so her pigtails swung. 1983 Listener 19 May 11/1 The council treated the urbane Mr Cook to the politician’s equivalent of ‘Yah, boo, sucks’. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-getting-hosed-vulgar/508744/23 "2009-09-04T01:29:05Z")
> [@Peanuthead](#): > > Good lord man! The “turn of the century” was less than nine years ago! “Sucks” means fellatio. That’s what it meant in 2001 and that’s what it meant in 2000 and 1999, and 1998, etc. We’re talking about vulgar expressions. Getting “hosed” is vulgar. “Sucking” is vulgar. We’re dealing in facts and it is what it is. :::sigh::: It’s taking longer than even Cecil thought. Let me spell it out for you. I’ve become so used to saying “turn of the century” to mean about 1890-1910, that I’ve become sloppy. I didn’t think that many people would think I was talking about 1990-2010. Guess I’ll have to rethink. Do you NOW understand than I was talking about the decades of 1890-1910? ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-getting-hosed-vulgar/508744/24 "2009-09-04T01:38:11Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > From the OED. Fascinating. Thanks. I’d always been under the impression that “sucks” was an oral sex reference and that it really crossed over into everyday use in the late 80’s or early 90’s thanks to its being used often on _Roseanne_. I apparently put together a bunch of bad assumptions/information. Thanks for that! ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-getting-hosed-vulgar/508744/25 "2009-09-04T01:56:59Z")
> [@Bayard](#): > > Fascinating. Thanks. I’d always been under the impression that “sucks” was an oral sex reference and that it really crossed over into everyday use in the late 80’s or early 90’s thanks to its being used often on _Roseanne_. I apparently put together a bunch of bad assumptions/information. Thanks for that! Whatever it’s origin in the early 1900s, when I was in high school and college in the 1960s and 1970s it certainly was understood to refer to oral sex and not something you would say around people of my parents’ generation. So it may have gone through a not vulgar/vulgar/not so vulgar cycle. ---
**Author:** ![Peanuthead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peanuthead/32/360_2.png) [@Peanuthead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peanuthead)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-getting-hosed-vulgar/508744/26 "2009-09-04T02:06:00Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > :::sigh::: It’s taking longer than even Cecil thought. > > Let me spell it out for you. I’ve become so used to saying “turn of the century” to mean about 1890-1910, that I’ve become sloppy. I didn’t think that many people would think I was talking about 1990-2010. Guess I’ll have to rethink. > > Do you NOW understand than I was talking about the decades of 1890-1910? Okay, I’ll give you that. But I don’t believe that those lame expressions continued through the 20th century. You never heard anybody in the 1940s or 1950s saying something “sucks”. Just take it at face value. Somebody says “that sucks”. Ask them what that means. They’ll probably say it’s bad or no good. Ask them what “sucking” has to do with it and you’ll get a blank stare. The OP asked if “hosed” was vulgar. It is. My misdirection opened up another can of worms but I believe the answer is the same. Yes, it too is vulgar. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-getting-hosed-vulgar/508744/27 "2009-09-04T03:06:27Z")
> [@Peanuthead](#): > > Okay, I’ll give you that. But I don’t believe that those lame expressions continued through the 20th century. You never heard anybody in the 1940s or 1950s saying something “sucks”. Bring evidence. > [@](#): > > Just take it at face value. Somebody says “that sucks”. Ask them what that means. They’ll probably say it’s bad or no good. Ask them what “sucking” has to do with it and you’ll get a blank stare. What is this supposed to prove? ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-getting-hosed-vulgar/508744/28 "2009-09-04T08:35:06Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > :::sigh::: It’s taking longer than even Cecil thought. > > Let me spell it out for you. I’ve become so used to saying “turn of the century” to mean about 1890-1910, that I’ve become sloppy. I didn’t think that many people would think I was talking about 1990-2010. Guess I’ll have to rethink. > > Do you NOW understand than I was talking about the decades of 1890-1910? 😃 I knew what you meant, but come on – the is the SDMB: if you leave a nit to be picked, picked it most certainly will be. On which topic: you also referred to the phrase “sucks to **be** you” in that post, which to my mind is different from the “sucks to you” in the passage you quoted from the OED. On a separate topic, though: can we clarify what we mean by “vulgar” here? It seems to me that in a discussion of this sort there’s a useful distinction that could be made between words and expressions that are “vulgar” in the sense of common, coarse or unrefined, and those that are actually “obscene” in that they refer to sexual organs or activities. ---
**Author:** ![Claude\_Remains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@Claude\_Remains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claude_Remains)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-getting-hosed-vulgar/508744/29 "2009-09-04T08:48:15Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > It could also have been influenced by the practice of breaking up demonstrations in the 1950s and 1960s by turning fire hoses on protesters. Having been born and raised in Detroit,MI- this statement is factual. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-getting-hosed-vulgar/508744.md?page=1)