How about “sucks” as in “sucks the life outta me”? That’s how I mean it when I say something sucks. I’m an English teacher, and I have been taken to task for using this word, but I figure, fuck it. It’s a very expedient way of expressing my disdain for something. I’ll even tell you why. But Walloon was definitely sucking the life of of me in that thread…
So Waloon is, in fact, Count Rugen?
“I’ve just sucked one year of your life away. I might one day go as high as five, but I really don’t know what that would do to you. So, let’s just start with what we have. What did this do to you? Tell me. And remember, this is for posterity so be honest. How do you feel?”
Maybe that’s why Waloon can type so fast…you know, eleven fingers and all that.
-Joe
INCONCEIVABLE!!!
Not to hijack this sucky thread, but why would something referring to blow jobs (if indeed that’s the history) be bad, exactly? I mean, I can think of few things most men enjoy more than blow jobs, and they’re not exactly underrated among women, either.
WhyNot,
who’s never understood why “cunt”, “pussy”, “prick” and “dick” are
insults, either, as she enjoys owning one and borrowing the other.
When I was in high school (1970s) we actually had a heirarchy of suckiness. From bad to worse to worst, it went:
Sucks
Sucks Rocks
Sucks Canal Water
Sucks Red Hot Chilies
Sucks Big Green Donkey Dick
Personnally, I have a lot of sympathy for Walloon based solely on the threat title. I don’t say sucks–or at least not often. Sucks is too slangy, too adolescent, too non-specifically disagreeable. (I can even see too vulgar, but that isn’t why I find it objectionable in general).
In the case of a thread like the one in which Walloon objected to “sucks”, it’s also inappropriate because too often sucks is used meaning “this book is bad or badly written” when the poster should be saying “this book does not appeal to me.” Sure, sometimes things are just bad, but many threads in Cafe Society become interesting when someone can articulate why something was enjoyable despite the illogic, or why something illogical was (or was not) a plot hole. So often, things are not so much objectively bad as they are not appealling to that reader or viewer.
Of course, I have a bit of a problem in that regard, as I am almost never inclined to say that something was really bad or really good, preferring to emphasize how much or little enjoyment I got from something.
And if Walloon objects to the overuse of the word “sucks”, Walloon would have been smarter to write a Pit thread about how people overuse the word sucks, rather than object to it within a thread, in which many people were articulating why they found various books not to their liking–and sometimes quit reading them, and sometimes didn’t.
It seems to me though that Walloon isn’t surprised that people who say sucks read books because sucks means “badly written” as opposed to “it doesn’t appeal to me”, but more along the lines of your first paragraph; because it’s too slangy, too adolescent. He appears to be surprised that someone who would use *that particular word * would read books, and as such isn’t talking about people who should say “it doesn’t appeal to me” but about “adolescent” slang-using people.
Based solely on this line, well, whoop dee frickin’ doo!
I don’t get this. You say that there is such thing as objective quality (“sometimes things are just bad”), but you object to other posters making that claim when really they just mean they don’t like a particular product? What criteria do you use, then, for establishing objective suckitude?
The way I read it, whenever someone makes a claim that such-and-such sucks, they’re necessarily claiming that it doesn’t appeal to them. The only objective claim they could make is that the author isn’t accomplishing her intentions, but folks make that claim as part of their explanation for why something sucks.
And “sucks” carries a whole wealth of connotations to it that make it, IMO, a spectacular word choice in the referenced thread’s title. What alternative title would you suggest for that thread?
He would have been smart not to imply that people whose vocabulary expands beyond his own’s limits are illiterate.
Daniel
Right. This is the central issue. Insulting everyone who doesn’t speak exactly the way he does is bad manners - and frankly, stupid. The elitist sentiment he was espousing is sort of undermined by those facts.
**Walloon **couldn’t suck enough. Just sayin’.
And that’s why I didn’t have to ride the bus home in high school.
God help me, that made me laugh.
Unfortunately, I am forced to agree with Ferret Herder, and you (and probably others) that “sucks” is a better, more succient, more flexible word for a thread title than any other I have come up with. Just because I want to roll my eyes every time I see it doesn’t mean it sucks as a thread title :).
And the fact that I have yet to post an anecdote of discovering that a book sucks in that thread has more to do with my reading habits, and my inability to remember any crystal clear “This book sucks” moments than it does a refusal to state that a book sucks.
I don’t have any answers for your other questions–they are valid criticisms/ queries in response to my points, I just don’t have equally good responses.
I’d argue that there’s effectively no difference between the two.
Yeah, but that’s a lot to fit into a thread title, don’t you think? From what I saw of the thread, people were having no problems explaining why the stuff they thought sucked, sucked.
Which is, perhaps, more even handed, but makes for less interesting commentary. Maybe it’s just me, but someone tearing into a work of art like a Bradley tank assaulting a sand castle is much more entertaining than a bunch of milquetoast “I didn’t care for its.”
As LHoD and Excalibre pointed out, that does not seem to have been Walloon’s objection. Rather, it was a bit of snobbery over the idea that someone who would use “that word” could possibly be interested in books, of all things.
And that, in a nutshell, is why I read 10 threads in Cafe Society for every 1 I post in. It isn’t just you, and as much as it sometimes annoys me when I feel like posters forget that just because something isn’t to their taste doesn’t mean that it’s bad–where bad means to no one’staste, it is more interesting to read the opinions of people with strong feelings–and I tend to be lukewarm, myself, doomed never to experience the deepest troughs of despair, or ascend to the highest peaks of exhuberant exhileration.
Meh. My interest in analyzing Walloon’s motives is really, really low. But if you [plural] are right, Walloon’s behavior was even sillier, and stupider, than I gave it credit for.
Which goes back to my position that there’s really no difference between “X is bad” and “X isn’t to my taste.” Wether or not something is good or bad is entirely subject to how much you like it. I don’t think there is any book, song, movie, or what-have-you that appeals to no one’s taste. No matter how crappy a work of art, there’s always someone who will defend it, even if it’s only the person who made it. Even if there are universally reviled works, they’re so rare as to make the appellation of “bad” effectively useless. Far easier, better, and more accurate to recognize “X is bad” as a synonymous with “X isn’t to my taste.”
I disagree. And if there is no difference between those two statements, that is a problem. There should be a difference. I seem to be on the weak side of this argument, however. Especially since I can’t come up with any way to establish what is bad (or good) without referring to popularity, genre, personal preference, critics, tradition . . . all things which lack something as objective criteria.
Also, I have to admit that I agree with this statement
I usually do recognize that any thread like the one which inspired this one in Cafe Society is full of invisible "In My Opinion"s, “when compared to stuff I like” and various other disclaimers too mundane and repetitive to type. And it seldom bothers me when people say “X is good” when they really mean “X is precisely to my taste and I wish they’d make more like it.”
This is by no means the first time Walloon has shown herself to be a prissy language snob. See for example “Walloon, you pompous-assed prescriptivist grammar Nazi”. I hope this latest pitting prompts her to tone down some.
And I would argue that there is nothing inconsistent in saying “This is a very well written book, but it does not appeal to me.”