Suss Out Means to Investigate or Figure Something Out

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Nathan in Leesburg, Florida. How are you?

Hi, Nathan. Welcome to the program.

Hi, Nathan. The lakefront city.

That’s right. You’ve been to Leesburg?

I have been to Leesburg. What’s going on there?

Well, I monitor about 20 different podcasts, and that’s how I get your show, too.

Oh, cool.

And so some of the podcasts I listen to are about gadgets, because I’m a guy.

One of them recently talked about the phrase sussed out, and they were talking about a new gadget and whether it did this or that, and they said, well, we’ll have to see when it comes out and we’ll suss it out, like they used in the context of investigate.

But I had never really run across this word before, and I’m spelling it S-U-S-S, although I don’t know that’s how it’s spelled because I’ve just heard it spoken.

But it doesn’t give me a clue to its origin or anything like that or if that usage of sussing something out or to suss it out.

And, Nathan, was this a podcast from the U.K. or from this country?

It was actually one based in California.

-huh.

Okay.

-huh.

Yeah, that makes sense.

The reason I ask is because it was originally British, and I wonder if you have any suspicions or suspect what the etymology might be.

Well, it sounds a little bit like suspect.

Right! That’s it! Congratulations!

Martha’s the teacher you wish you had.

She gives you the answer to the quiz every time.

And she makes it so easy, too.

She makes it so easy.

So that’s the origin, then, to suspect.

Yeah.

It’s crazy, though, that it should come from the UK.

I have no mental flag at all that says this is foreign to my idiolect or even to the speech around me.

To me, it seems perfectly normal.

Now, I know I’ve read a lot of British.

I was going to say, you have other flags coming out of your head.

Diver down.

No, but I’m just saying, like, usually you have some kind of vague hint in your mind that, oh, I borrowed this.

I learned this late in life, or this came from a particular author, and I don’t have that.

Right.

Now, I’ve listened to a ton of BBC for decades.

I’ve read a ton of British literature for decades.

It doesn’t seem British to me.

Yeah, me either.

What about you, Nathan?

But all the dictionaries say that, right?

Nathan, did you notice that?

Did you look it up and see that all the dictionaries say that it’s originally British?

Well, I just looked it up from the aspect of if it’s proper usage, or that if it’s a proper word.

I thought maybe somebody was a lot of times in American English.

It’s sort of vernacular.

And oftentimes in the tech industry, there are sort of pet words or complicated programming language.

And I thought, well, maybe it has something to do with that.

Yeah, I love it because it seems so active, you know, suss out.

I just feel like I’m putting on a little Sherlock Holmes cap, you know.

Just to be clear what it means here, it means kind of you look into something that you’re unsure about, right?

You investigate and kind of take a forensic approach to figuring out what happened or how it works or what’s taking place.

Yeah, we’re going to suss out the answer to that question.

Yeah, so it’s a great word.

I love it, and we appreciate your calling, Nathan.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, sir.

Thanks for listening.

Take care.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Well, if you have a question about language, we will suss out the answer.

All you have to do is call us 877-929-9673 or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.