# On the etymology of "sucks" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 27, 2010, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499 "2010-10-27T10:32:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/21 "2010-10-28T04:24:21Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > I was assuming an oral sex component of the origin. My evidence would be that when people are trying to intensify their use of the term they often turn to things like “sucks donkey cock” or “sucks the sweat off a dead man’s balls”. I admit I have no particular evidence that these elements were present when the term was originated, but they seem to go together quite naturally in many people’s minds. Yes, so does “this blows”, and we have fair certainty that the term originated as “this blows chunks”, and it too is now used in phrases such as “blows goats”. I suspect that as society became cruder, or at least more tolerant of crudity in children, a lot of older and politer words became corrupted into crude form. “Insult-head” would be another example, starting out with mild insults such as “pumpkin head” and degenerating into “dick head”. Despite that, dickhead doesn’t refer to the head of a penis, though they seem to go together quite naturally. ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/22 "2010-10-28T06:44:30Z")
On a related note, where does the term " go suck an egg come from? What the heck is egg sucking anyway? I remember Miss Rachel Lynde in Anne of Green Gables telling Marilla about an adopted boy who used to suck eggs. ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/23 "2010-10-28T07:02:35Z")
> [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](#): > > On a related note, where does the term " go suck an egg come from? What the heck is egg sucking anyway? I remember Miss Rachel Lynde in Anne of Green Gables telling Marilla about an adopted boy who used to suck eggs. You poke a hole in each end of an egg and suck the contents out through one of them. It’s a real thing that people can do if they like raw egg. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/24 "2010-10-28T14:21:16Z")
> [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](#): > > On a related note, where does the term " go suck an egg come from? What the heck is egg sucking anyway? I remember Miss Rachel Lynde in Anne of Green Gables telling Marilla about an adopted boy who used to suck eggs. I’d been thinking about starting a thread asking where ‘Don’t try to teach your grandmother how to suck eggs!’ comes from. So since you brought up sucking eggs, I’ll ask in this thread. **Manduck** says it’s a real thing. But did the serious practice start because of the phrase? Or did the phrase come from egg-suckers? The way I read it, the phrase means ‘You’re attempting to instruct someone who knows much more about the subject than you do.’ Presumably it would be just as useless to attempt to instruct one’s grandmother to suck eggs. But is it futile because Grandma already knows how to poke holes in an egg and suck it down? (Assume she enjoys raw egg.) Or is it because Grandma is too experienced to fall for the prank of trying to make her eat a raw egg? (Assume that people don’t generally like eating raw eggs.) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/25 "2010-10-28T15:04:28Z")
> [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](#): > > On a related note, where does the term " go suck an egg come from? What the heck is egg sucking anyway? [Meaning of “Suck Eggs”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=482556) ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2010, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/26 "2010-10-29T21:53:52Z")
The modern usage is clearly short for “this sucks cock”, meaning it’s just as bad as if it were a homosexual. ---
**Author:** ![RachelChristine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ab992/32.png) [@RachelChristine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RachelChristine)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2010, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/27 "2010-10-29T22:39:48Z")
We just read Prince Caspian last week and I had the same reaction! I spent an hour or two reading different webpages on the origin of that phrase. It actually took me out of the moment in the book. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/28 "2010-10-29T22:44:23Z")
> [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](#): > > On a related note, where does the term " go suck an egg come from? What the heck is egg sucking anyway? I remember Miss Rachel Lynde in Anne of Green Gables telling Marilla about an adopted boy who used to suck eggs. I’d hazard a guess that it may be related to the phrase “Teaching your grandmother to suck eggs” ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2010, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/29 "2010-10-29T23:18:05Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > The modern usage is clearly short for “this sucks cock”, meaning it’s just as bad as if it were a homosexual. “Clearly”? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/30 "2010-10-30T17:20:38Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > I was assuming an oral sex component of the origin. My evidence would be that when people are trying to intensify their use of the term they often turn to things like “sucks donkey cock” or “sucks the sweat off a dead man’s balls”. I admit I have no particular evidence that these elements were present when the term was originated, but they seem to go together quite naturally in many people’s minds. When I was in school in the 70s, we used to identify some girl or other as being able to suck a watermelon through a picket fence. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/31 "2010-10-30T17:25:42Z")
I always heard that it was an insult between men. If you told a man that he “sucks” that meant that he sucked dick and was therefore a homosexual. This, of course, was back in the stone ages when there was something wrong with that. I could be wrong, though. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/32 "2010-10-30T20:23:19Z")
In the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, c. 1876, IIRC, Tom says that anybody that does “cant remember” will suck eggs. That’s all I got. Best wishes, hh ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/33 "2010-10-31T00:24:11Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > When I was in school in the 70s, we used to identify some girl or other as being able to suck a watermelon through a picket fence. In which case you confalted two different expression, as kids often do. “Able to eat watermelon/apple through a picket fence” means a girl has a pronounced overbite/buck teeth, for obvious reasons. “Able to suck a golf ball through a length of garden hose” means a girl has impressive sucking ability, for obvious reasons. “Able to suck a watermelon through a picket fence” doesn’t make any sense at all. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/34 "2010-10-31T02:36:17Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > In which case you confalted two different expression, as kids often do. > > “Able to eat watermelon/apple through a picket fence” means a girl has a pronounced overbite/buck teeth, for obvious reasons. > > “Able to suck a golf ball through a length of garden hose” means a girl has impressive sucking ability, for obvious reasons. > > “Able to suck a watermelon through a picket fence” doesn’t make any sense at all. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Weedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/weedy/32/301_2.png) [@Weedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weedy)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/35 "2010-10-31T06:36:52Z")
There’s also the phrase ‘sucks hind teat’ that describes the runt of a litter. ---
**Author:** ![sswam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3be4f8/32.png) [@sswam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sswam)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/36 "2014-07-28T06:43:46Z")
So I’ll necro this. Urban dictionary says: > [@](#): > > The early Jazz musicians would say that a guy could really “Blow” if he had a good sound when playing the horn. If he couldn’t play very well then they would say that he was “Sucking” on that horn. That’s where the term “Suck” as being something bad came from. > He plays that horn so poorly that he must be sucking on it. > > He doesn’t blow, he sucks. Any truth in that? I couldn’t find much evidence elsewhere. I imagine it could also refer to (homosexual) fellatio, or to a baby breast-feeding as a slur “you’re so immature still sucking the teat”. Maybe a combined origin thing. ---
**Author:** ![Staggerlee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/staggerlee/32/3134_2.png) [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/37 "2014-07-28T07:08:26Z")
I can’t imagine the UK use of ‘sucks’ has that Jazz etymology too though. As someone else has unearthed this fly-infested thread: maybe ‘sucks’ refers to ‘thumb-sucking’. Not that it can’t have evolved separately from other roots too. ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/38 "2014-07-28T13:26:46Z")
All I can say is that in my sniggering adolescent years (mid-60s), my friends and I were quite certain as to the derivation of both “That sucks!” AND “That blows,” and that it was unquestionably sexual. I can’t be the only one that, at least for a time, took a bit of an involuntary gasp of breath upon first hearing “That sucks” tossed around so casually in mainstream media by succeeding generations. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/39 "2014-07-28T18:49:33Z")
_Necro_…I like! Welcome to the SDMB, and thanks for bringing a cool and useful new verb with you. ---
**Author:** ![SpeedwayRyan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@SpeedwayRyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpeedwayRyan)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/40 "2014-07-30T16:44:02Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > In which case you confalted two different expression, as kids often do. > > “Able to eat watermelon/apple through a picket fence” means a girl has a pronounced overbite/buck teeth, for obvious reasons. > > “Able to suck a golf ball through a length of garden hose” means a girl has impressive sucking ability, for obvious reasons. > > “Able to suck a watermelon through a picket fence” doesn’t make any sense at all. No love for “able to suck the chrome off a trailer hitch?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499.md?page=3)