i think the overreaction is a generational thing. "x sucks" has been a fairly common, if informal, way of expressing disapproval for most of my life. i remember using the phrase as far back as at least middle school, probably earlier. i still use it regularly in informal speech without much thought.
except that a few years ago i used it in front of my mother-in-law and discovered that she thinks the phrase is really crude. so i avoid using it around her. when my mother-in-law told me she didn't like it i asked her why, and she said "because of the sexual connotation," a connotation that had simply never occurred to me. that's probably because i had been saying things sucked since before i realized that sucking had anything to do with sex.
as for "x blows", i think that one is more recent. i don't remember hearing it before college. although i don't think of it as "potty-mouthed", my impression is that blowing is a little stronger than sucking. but maybe that's also a generational thing. i wouldn't be surprised if the kids today saw sucking and blowing as pretty equivalent.
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except that a few years ago i used it in front of my mother-in-law and discovered that she thinks the phrase is really crude. so i avoid using it around her. when my mother-in-law told me she didn't like it i asked her why, and she said "because of the sexual connotation," a connotation that had simply never occurred to me. that's probably because i had been saying things sucked since before i realized that sucking had anything to do with sex.
as for "x blows", i think that one is more recent. i don't remember hearing it before college. although i don't think of it as "potty-mouthed", my impression is that blowing is a little stronger than sucking. but maybe that's also a generational thing. i wouldn't be surprised if the kids today saw sucking and blowing as pretty equivalent.
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