More on "sucks".
I wrote about this before (and yes, I did used to really like Lee Seigel before, well...) and now somebody else has done it better:
Sucks is here to stay. And what's more, it deserves its place in our lexicon, for a couple of reasons. First, it's impossible to intelligently maintain that sucks is still offensive. The word is now completely divorced from any past reference it may have made to a certain sex act. When I tell you that the new M. Night Shyamalan movie sucks (and man, does it suck), my mind in no way conjures up an image of a film reel somehow fellating an unnamed beneficiary.
Exactly. And:
Sucks is the most concise, emphatic way we have to say something is no good. As a one-syllable intransitive verb, it offers superb economy. Granted, some things require more involved assessments (like, say, James Joyce: I find his early work unparalleled in its style and its evocation of emotion, while his later writing became willfully opaque in a manner that leaves me cold). But other things don't require this sort of elaboration (like, say, John Grisham: He sucks).
Here are some things that suck:
1) Peter MacKay's clownshow diplomacy.
2) The fact that my candidates hardly ever win elections (bad news for Gerard Kennedy).
3) Just about everything to do with the Middle East. Here's a good example.
4) Living with pain.
5) Raisins (especially when used to ruin cinnamon buns or bread pudding).
6) Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
7) Most of the Globe and Mail op-ed page.
8) "South Park Republicans".
9) The original Frankenstein. (Honorary mentions to D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love and Ernest Buckler's The Mountain and the Valley.
10) Pitchfork Magazine's review of How We Operate (which I could stomach if they actually liked early Gomez, but they gave In Our Gun at 2.7! Wankers.)
Feel free to add your suggestions.
Sucks is here to stay. And what's more, it deserves its place in our lexicon, for a couple of reasons. First, it's impossible to intelligently maintain that sucks is still offensive. The word is now completely divorced from any past reference it may have made to a certain sex act. When I tell you that the new M. Night Shyamalan movie sucks (and man, does it suck), my mind in no way conjures up an image of a film reel somehow fellating an unnamed beneficiary.
Exactly. And:
Sucks is the most concise, emphatic way we have to say something is no good. As a one-syllable intransitive verb, it offers superb economy. Granted, some things require more involved assessments (like, say, James Joyce: I find his early work unparalleled in its style and its evocation of emotion, while his later writing became willfully opaque in a manner that leaves me cold). But other things don't require this sort of elaboration (like, say, John Grisham: He sucks).
Here are some things that suck:
1) Peter MacKay's clownshow diplomacy.
2) The fact that my candidates hardly ever win elections (bad news for Gerard Kennedy).
3) Just about everything to do with the Middle East. Here's a good example.
4) Living with pain.
5) Raisins (especially when used to ruin cinnamon buns or bread pudding).
6) Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
7) Most of the Globe and Mail op-ed page.
8) "South Park Republicans".
9) The original Frankenstein. (Honorary mentions to D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love and Ernest Buckler's The Mountain and the Valley.
10) Pitchfork Magazine's review of How We Operate (which I could stomach if they actually liked early Gomez, but they gave In Our Gun at 2.7! Wankers.)
Feel free to add your suggestions.
5 Comments:
I think the worst raisin offenders are the raisins masquerading as chocolate chips. Especially in soft and chewy oatmeal cookies.
Oh. Those are the worst. Oatmeal cookies are so delicious too.
Yes! Law and Order: SVU does indeed.
And, thank you for this one, the original Frankenstein does too. But awful as it is, it's contributed an indispensible myth to the culture---without Mary Shelley's novel we wouldn't have James Whale's movie.
Or Mel Brooks'.
Yeah, I'm a big fan of the oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, and when I get a raisin it's like, "what's this doing here?"
I generally refrain from using 'sucks' as a critical term, since I don't want to contribute to social stigmas afflicting those who fellate things. But if the term 'sucks' is divorced from this connotation, I guess I shouldn't worry anymore.
Neil -- that actually was my point the first time I wrote about "sucks". But I think it's a pretty asexual term now.
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