"We didn't realize that lite beer was supposed to suck!": The Putative Vulgarity of "X sucks" in American English

Abstract

Te didn't realize, says the voice-over in a memorable 1999 Amstel beer television commercial, beer was supposed to suck! As anyone familiar with contemporary American English will recognize, that commercial's creators intended the audi- ence to infer that all other lite beers are terrible (the meaning suck in this context): only Amstel's naive but honest brewers, used to the production excellent products, make a flavorful and satisfying lite beer in defiance ajaded public's cynical expectations. The colloquial general pejorative use the verb suck has been increasingly popular in American English during the past 30 years. Ac- cording to the most recent edition TheAmerican HeritageDictionary the English Language (AHD4), suck, defined as to be disgustingly dis- agreeable is vulgar slang. X sucks! has in fact largely replaced an earlier generation's X stinks! as a colloquial way saying that X is of an ex- tremely low or bad quality (AHD4 s.v. stink) . There is, however, an im- portant difference between Xsucks!and Xstinks!according to AHD4: X stinks! is merely Slang, whereas Xsucks! is not merely Slang, it is Vul- gar, as well, a label that AHD4 assigns to entries to warn dictionary users that there are social taboos attached to a word; ... (these are) words that violate accepted standards decency (2000, xxxiii). AHD4 is scarcely alone in its belief in the putative offensiveness X sucks! This most recent authoritative American dictionaries merely echoes earlier dictionary makers the 1980s and 1990s. How can dictionary makers plausiblymaintain that Xsucks!is vul-