This is not a question of decency or manners.
I understand if you’ve got a wad of gum or a cherry pit, you need to spit it out. What I’m asking about is street-spitters. What makes young men (generally) want to spit instead of swallowing excess saliva? Is it a display of machismo? Defiance? I don’t get it.
I don’t know but it is disgusting and an instand deal-breaker for me. You’ll get lots of people defending the practice. Especially during exercise, which I can get around. However, it’s the asshole practice of walking down the street and just hawking a big old lugey onto the ground. I don’t care if it’s just saliva and it’s outdoors or whatever. It’s gross.
Like I said, this is not a thread about the decency or manners involving spitting, but the reasoning.
Sorry. It’s kind of a knee-jerky reaction. But, to be back on the point, the only reason I have ever heard is the exercise one…when you exercise your mouth fills up with saliva.
I’m not sure why young men do it randomly.
I used to spit a lot in grade school - it becomes very habitual once you start doing it a lot. It took a lot of effort to quit, just like any bad habit. I can’t remember why I started up, though - sorry.
In some cultures (e.g. China), the idea is that you don’t want to swallow whatever poison is building up in your throat (due to pollution or whatever). So you spit it out.
It’s still gross, though. That’s probably why kids do it.
I’ve never gotten it either. I don’t even feel the need to do it–I never have excess spit, that I’ve noticed.
In some situations, spitting can symbolize rejecting what the spitter has just said. “It’s a new rule from the mayor. (ptui)”
Beyond that, I believe it’s a hard-wired tendency for male mammals to mark their territory. Littering and farting can be seen in the same way.
It was once my job to clean up an area where a tribe of draftsmen worked. I worked on the night shift, so I never saw them. Each one had his own wastebasket, but each one apparently started the day by scattering paperclips, like Sumos scattering salt to purify the ring. Then they settled in for the day-long rubber band fight. Naturally, the pencil shavings and snack wrappers were in the general region of the wastebasket, but not in it.
When I’m spitting (and definitely not male, here), it’s because I’ve just snorked up some gross wad of phlegm that I’d rather not swallow. Note, too, that I spit it onto the street or into the gutter, not onto the sidewalk. So, in my case, it’s a means of disposing of gross stuff my respiratory system has produced when I don’t have a kleenex handy.
Plus, I’ve gotten pretty good at putting distance on it. Spitting can be kind of fun. Though obviously a habit best restricted from polite company.
When I have a cold, I find that swallowing lots of phlegm that I have coughed up makes me nauseous. I try not to spit when others are around, and if I have a tissue handy, I’ll use that first. Come to think of it, does it really make sense to put a tissue in a landfill, when I could just spit it out?
Really, why is it more gross then bird shit, road salt or any number of things that are found on the ground? It’s only gross because we’ve been trained to think it is gross.
In the NYC subways they used to (and maybe still do) post signs everywhere saying it is unlawful to expectorate.
They never said anything about puking, though.
It isn’t any more gross. In fact, I think I’d complain even more about a guy who walks around deliberately throwing bird shit on the sidewalk or street.
It’d be even worse if he was spitting it.
Anyways, for my part it’s a case of mucus, not saliva. If there’s a trashcan with an open top (unfortunately rare) handy, I’ll use that, but otherwise a storm drain or gutter usually gets it.
Are you sure it’s merely saliva they’re spitting OP? As runcible spoon says, it might be mucus or phlegm.
My brother does this now-a-days and I’m pretty sure it’s not from mucus or phlegm. I call him a barbarian every time he does it.
It’s gross if people do it on the sidewalk, or some other area (like an inside floor, ugh) where people are liable to step in it. It’s one of those bodily fluids/secretions that arouses what I like to call the gross-out factor: it probably won’t actually make you sick, but that doesn’t mean it’s pleasant to think about.
Applicable to why me and my buddies constantly spit when smoking cigars. Since you don’t inhale that smoke, it stays in your mouth, combining with saliva. You don’t want to swallow the stuff so out it goes; wrt hogarth’s comment, I suppose it could be called poison, after a fashion.
Spitters are feelthy peegs.
-George Carlin
I came in here to say this. I can’t remember the last time I’ve spit out just saliva, but if I’ve just hocked up a nice, thick ball of phlegmy badness, it goes out. Sorry if it seems rude, but the horrendous phlegm ball must go. If I have tissue or something in my purse, I’ll use that then throw it away as soon as I can, but if I don’t, it goes into the nearest trash can, or failing that, the street.
Actually, I first heard this from a very young Richard Pryor, at the Hungry I in S.F. many years before Carlin became prominent. I should have credited him, but he may well have stolen it from somebody else.