# 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:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/41 "2016-09-04T02:03:27Z")
Surely “that blows chunks” is a reference to vomiting. :dubious: With respect to the sexual connotation, I’m reminded of the cartoon in one magazine (don’t remember which) “Suck, Gloria, suck! ‘Blow’ is just a figure of speech!” 😛 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/42 "2016-09-04T02:07:54Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > In which case you confalted two different expression, as kids often do. I think you may have conflated “confalted.” 😃 > [@](#): > > “Able to suck a golf ball through a length of garden hose” means a girl has impressive sucking ability, for obvious reasons. It’s even better if she can suck an orange through a garden hose!\* 🆒 \*And grapefruit is top of the line! :o ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/43 "2016-09-04T04:09:43Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > They left out the best one! “Sucks to your asth-mar!” - Lord of the Flies > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > First thing I thought of. > > Only, I thought he said ‘arse mar’. Curiously, I am certain that my edition said “ass-mar.” ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/44 "2016-09-04T05:40:27Z")
I remember in 1990 when CBS brought an adaptation of the movie _Uncle Buck_ to TV. The first line in the show was Uncle Buck’s niece yelling “You suck!” at her brother. It was considered mildly controversial at the time. > **[Remember The 1990 Uncle Buck TV Show? It Was Horrible - /Film](https://www.slashfilm.com/534261/1990-uncle-buck-tv-show/)** > > Lets take a look back at the original 1990 Uncle Buck tv show. You might not remember it because it only lasted one season and was pretty horrible. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/45 "2016-09-04T05:50:37Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > In an old Three Stooges short (not sure which one since it’s just a clip I found), Curly says, “If at first you don’t succeed, keep on sucking until you do succeed!” In retrospect it seems like a pun of a sort, and given the character inveterate naivete, it may not have been intended precisely as the modern idiom is now. Since Jerome Howard died in 1952, it has to have come from before then obviously. I remember seeing that on TV when I was very young. He said those lines with a half a lemon in his mouth, upon which he was practicing the said verb. Which may allude to Chapter 69 in Aleister Crowley’s _Book of Lies_, titled: “How to Succeed and How to Suck Eggs” Speaking of British locutions—“Yah boo”? Huh? That doesn’t even quite sound like English. Of course, over here we got all these Americans going “Boo yah”.. which I don’t understand the meaning of either. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/46 "2016-09-04T05:55:40Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > In an old Three Stooges short (not sure which one since it’s just a clip I found), Curly says, “If at first you don’t succeed, keep on sucking until you do succeed!” In retrospect it seems like a pun of a sort, and given the character inveterate naivete, it may not have been intended precisely as the modern idiom is now. Since Jerome Howard died in 1952, it has to have come from before then obviously. I’ve seen that short numerous times. I think the pun lies in that it sounds like Curly said, “If at first you don’t succeed, keep on sucking until you do suck seed.” ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/47 "2016-09-04T09:33:59Z")
On the origin of the phrase "_teaching your grandmother to suck eggs"_; Michael Quinion in his website World Wide Words, gives us this: > [@](#): > > ~its meaning is clear enough: don’t give needless assistance or presume to offer advice to an expert. As that prolific author, Anon, once wrote: > _Teach not thy parent’s mother to extract > The embryo juices of the bird by suction. > The good old lady can that feat enact, > Quite irrespective of your kind instruction._ > > It was first recorded in 1707 in a translation by John Stevens of the collected comedies of the Spanish playwright Quevedo: “You would have me teach my Grandame to suck Eggs”. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/48 "2016-09-04T10:04:18Z")
Damn! Ambushed by another zombie! I really need to be more vigilant. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/49 "2016-09-04T15:29:44Z")
> [@Civil\_Guy](#): > > Hmm… in the absence of legitimate etymology, other than the direct Oxford English Dictionary and Online Etymology Dictionary references… it seems sensible to me that ‘sucking’ could be thought demeaning even if not applied to oral sex. And ya know, I’m not sure why anyone practicing fellatio would deserve contempt. Gratitude, yes, but contempt? > > Chicken eggs are sucked by grandmas, and babes suck at mother’s breast; both signs / conditions of fraility and weakness. I bet that where “that sucks” comes from originally, somehow or other. I started a thread about the first use of “sucks” in film on the cafe forum yesterday. One of the references I listed was a book on racing British Ford engines written in the early 1960s I would think (can’t find the book right now). The author uses “suck it and see” fairly often, such as when you make an educated guess and change a carburetor jet, for example. In other words, try it and see what happens. This wording is certainly not a sexual reference. Slang dictionaries cite it as “quaint” British expression. I assume derived from the mother/infant connection. Dennis ---
**Author:** ![dglevy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@dglevy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dglevy)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/50 "2016-09-06T15:05:37Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > I started a thread about the first use of “sucks” in film on the cafe forum yesterday. Thanks for the info! Here is the link to the other thread, which provides more useful commentary: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=803542](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=803542) That thread has a comment: > [@First use of "suck" in films?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-use-of-suck-in-films/764876/12): > > The earliest I’ve heard – and it sticks out in my mind because it _is_ a pretty early use – is in _Billy Jack_ from 1971. There’s a scene in which the characters are facing authority figures and an adolescent girl says “This court sucks!” or something along those lines, but “sucks” is definitely there. This is more or less consistent with my recollection. I remember the expression “you suck!” and “this sucks!” as a new expression sometime in the early 70s. It definitely had a sexual implication, as I remember it. Also from that other thread: > [@First use of "suck" in films?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-use-of-suck-in-films/764876/7): > > I think Saturday Night Live might have been the first to use the word that way on network television, in its January 22, 1977 episode: [http://snltranscripts.jt.org/76/76lstreisand.phtml](http://snltranscripts.jt.org/76/76lstreisand.phtml) The word got a HUGE laugh from the audience like they couldn’t believe the show got away with it. That is also consistent with my experience. I’ve found it interesting to see how, over these many years, the expression has sort of lost its naughty sexual implications and become more acceptable in the mass media and in the mouths of politicians. But it took a long, long time to get there. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499/51 "2016-09-07T06:47:06Z")
I remember that the 1979 comedy, _Love at First_ has a scene where a character writes “Dracula sucks!” and quickly erases it as being too naughty. Looking up the film I see that the working title was in fact _Dracula Sucks_ but apparently that didn’t make it. Somewhere I have _The Selected Letters of C.S. Lewis_. In one of the letters he comments that writing for children is like writing in a foreign language or like writing poetry with a strict metrical form–and one of the restrictions is the need to avoid mention of adult topics including sexuality. (Instead, in his children’s books he focused on another passion: food) Given that comment I would find it highly unlikely that he would have used “sucks” if it had any sort of sexual connotation for him. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-etymology-of-sucks/558499.md?page=2)