Talk:ugly stick

Pluralization

1) There is no cited example given of plural "ugly sticks" for the proverbial sense.
2) I can imagine such a sentence, but it seems contrived: "She didn't just get hit with an ugly stick, looks to me like she got hit with a few ugly sticks!"
3) I suggest that either examples of the pluralized form for the proverbial sense be found, or that a distinction be drawn such that it's clear that the proverbial sense is rarely pluralized (if true). --Geographyinitiative (talk) 01:34, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Re: 2. It may be less contrived if you think of the affected people being of plural number too. E.g., "they all looked like they had gotten hit by ugly sticks". It would be ideal if we could find at least one citation for this, of course. 70.172.194.25 01:38, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

That's good-- but even in that situation, I see the pluralization as contrived: I think I would say "they all looked like they had gotten hit by the ugly stick". --Geographyinitiative (talk) 01:41, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

This Routledge slang dictionary has a quote using it in the plural: [1]. Some on Usenet too, if you're willing to sift a bit: [2]. 70.172.194.25 01:45, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your work. (1) The slang dictionary's sentence is "They'd been whupped with ugly sticks, many of them." I could not see what page of Dominatrix 2002 that the sentence appears on; I don't trust it without the context provided. Without context, I would more naturally say: "They'd been whupped with the ugly stick, many of them." It just seems bizarre. Anyway, the book referenced may not in a library I can get to.
(2) I have only ever done maybe one Usenet cite on Wiktionary, but using the link provided, I found no examples of the search term. I did change the search and find several examples of "ugly stick", but I was not able to find "with ugly sticks" in anything. That may be due to inexperience in this area; however I just couldn't find what you were talking about.
(3) I did the equivalent search to above on Internet Archive: "with%20ugly%20sticks"&sin=TXT and found this: "with+ugly+sticks", but it may be being used as a joke usage.
(4) Anyway, I am still very dubious that this pluralization should not be qualified in some way but I can't wait to be BTFO. That's the point of Wiktionary's descriptivist view. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 10:33, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

1) Yeah, the book is not available to preview on Google Books or Open Library. I do trust that the quotation is real, though. The same quote is also in the Partridge slang dictionary. There's one copy in a physical library I could make a day trip to, but it may not even be open to the public, and even if it were it doesn't seem worth it.

2) Here are some specific examples from Usenet: [3], [4], [5], [6] (in the form ugly-sticks), [7].

3) That is another valid example. 70.172.194.25 18:12, 28 May 2022 (UTC)