Did she blanch visibly and draw the corner of her crisp and unblemished wimple over her disgust-twisted mouth as she backed away?

Probably not.

Just the other day, I was saying (because I'm old and crotchety) how strange I find it that phrases like "that sucks" and "bitchy" have slipped into ever-wider casual usage. I'm old enough to remember being surprised to hear a tv character use the word "bitch" --- it delivered a frisson of taboo-breaking.

Funny coincidence: I recently said "oh, suck that" to a nun.

Here's my weird curse thing- I was listening to a radio commercial for "Punk'd" and Ashton was talking, and he said "asshole" and they bleeped out hole, but not ass! That still blows my mind.

p.s. - I know most nuns don't wear wimples these days. I just freaking love wimples, love the sleek wimpled look, and love saying "wimple." Wimple wimple wimple.

TPS: "ass" could (in theory) also refer to a donkey, but a bleep-hole can only have something to do with anatomy.

You're in the clear because you left what was being sucked up to the listener. You probably meant "canal water" or "lemons." If her mind automatically thought "donkey balls" or "bong water," well, that's her cross to bear now isn't it?

Oh, c'mon, everybody knows that "sucks" is just short for "sucks shit."

Unless she was ancient (in which case it's a generational thing) I doubt she'll mind. She might not use the word herself, (or she might), but she won't care if you do.

And that whole thing about priests? My family's chock full of religious people (two priests, two preachers, some lay readers, etc) and they don't think twice about people swearing around them. In fact, they'd rather people didn't get all weird just because they're there.

She's old enough that my horror after it came out of my mouth was mainly that I had said it to an older woman, at work, and then only secondarily did I remember she was a nun (she dresses in everyday clothes).

Luckily she had her back to me at the time because she was grabbing something from a shelf, so I quickly and awkwardly segued into a new topic by the time she turned around.

But, dammit, Elsa has a point. Wimple, woman! If you want to avoid having people use slang around you, wear a wimple!

Adding "stop talking like a 16 year old" to my To Do list....

Oh, c'mon, everybody knows that "sucks" is just short for "sucks shit."

I dunno. I tend to think things suck scrote. But that's just because "scrote" amuses my inner seventh grade boy.

When I was in third or fourth grade, I came home from school, and in the course of a debriefing on my day, I told my dad that such-and-such "sucks." He said, a little concerned about my youthful exposure to sexual slang, "[Hughie], do you know what 'sucks' means?"

"Of course I do," I responded. "It's short for 'sucks shit.'"

He smiled quickly, nodded, and said, "Alright, then. Run along and wash your hands, dinner'll be served shortly."

I'm also old enough to cringe at [what I consider] swearing in the media. I'm not old enough to remember when you couldn't say the word "pregnant" on TV, but I certainly remember when you couldn't say "penis," "jackass," "jerkoff," "bitch," or that sort of thing.

I was also brought up in a family in which you couldn't say "shut up," "piss," or "butt," so YMMV.

My peak swearing time was my mid-20s, when I decided to be a real pistol for a while. These days I expect swearing in context, but really cringe at it in general conversation. For some reason it's started to seem pretty crude to me.

Anyway, occhi, I'm sure the nun's ears didn't burn and fall off. And old ladies have been known to say some shocking things in the right company.

occhiblu, you're lucky this didn't happen.

I always thought "sucks" was short for "sucks ass" or "sucks balls."

She's a nun. Invest in asbestos undies.

I think it's funny that saying that something "sucks" and something "blows" pretty much means the same thing.

Also, I never thought it was short for anything. Hence my propensity, about a year ago, to say that such-and-such can
"suck it". I'm not saying ANYTHING about what can be sucked.

Just because she's a nun doesn't mean she doesn't have a sense of humour, no matter how old she is. Usually diabolically wry humour iirc. Occhiblu, you ain't going to hell. The nun is probably regaling the story to her sisters as we type.

I once spent a delightful half hour at a bus stop, listening to a nun tell a story to a Japanese tourist. The story was about how, while working in a hospital, the Nun had been entertained by the failings of a Japanese assistant to speak english very well.

I suspect the tourist spoke less english than the assistant had. It was a painful half hour of very slow and loud repetition of key points of the anecdote.

Oh, and on the topic of slang expressions, I heard a great misuse once. An ad on TV for some collection of rock music, with large text and a voiceover proclaiming `THIS BITES!'. Um, hello, ad agency? Yeah. That doesn't mean what you think it means.

I don't see the problem.

Me neither...I had no idea "sucks" was a dirty word til I was like, 24. It's not like you don't hear it all day.