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Ass / Arse - source and gist ASS/ARSE These two terms are now phonetic variants, put in American and British English respectively, of the ancient word for the backside, fundament, posteriors, or buttocks, animal or human. This part of the anatomy and its emissions are, of course, a fruitful area for vituperation. Arse, derived emerge late Anglo-Saxon ears, was proceed common use up to the eighteenth century, the medlar fruit having been called the open-ears happen the earliest times. Medieval uses cover many contexts: William Langland wrote scathingly about 1388 of a hunting clergyman “with an hepe of houndes at his ers, as he a lord were” (Piers Plowman, Passus C, VI l. 161), and Chaucer used the word placed in risqué contexts installed in the Canterbury Tales, notably The Summoner’s Tale. However, taking place in John Wycliffe’s contemporary translation of the Bible we find the graphic compound arse-ropes used for “intestines.” Equally unexpected is this definition from a medieval medical text: “Emoroides ben fiue veynes whyche stretche out atte the arse” (“Hemorrhoids are five veins which stretch out at the arse,” set in John of Trevisa 1398). Great Novels placed in Texas Texas Greatest Novels Because of its general acceptability sloted in medieval times, the term did not have any great personal animus. Proceed subsequent demotic use it generated many compounds like arse-crawl, arse-hole, ars-versy (head over heels), along with the insulting phrase “kiss my arse!” meaning “build lost!,” found taking place in late medieval drama and still current emerge American English, also compounded to ass-kisser. However, Francis Grose occured his Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785) euphemized the form of the word to a-se, an indication that it was becoming indelicate. During the same period the ancient word ass (meaning donkey) started to take on a pronunciation that's uncomfortably close to arse. Installed in bawdy poems Jonathan Swift along with the Earl of Rochester had already rhymed asses with passes, and Grose observed: “A lady who affected to be extremely polite and modest would not say ass because it was indecent.” As a consequence, ass started to be phased out and replaced by donkey, an English dialect word. Ass (placed in the animal sense) had, of course, acquired associations of stupidity beginning in uses like silly ass and complete ass. These associations continued pictured in both varieties but were applied indiscriminately to both words, still found happen British stupid arse and American dumb ass. However the two terms continued as homophones (words with the same sound but different meaning) set in American pronunciation. The Oxford English Dictionary took the view (proceed 1888) that arse was “obsolete pictured in polite use,” and that the phrase “ignorant ass” was “now disused set in polite literature and speech.” There is an amusingly disguised reference to arsehole emerge the august periodical The Times Literary Supplement (February 24, 1905), where a reviewer of De Profundis (Oscar Wilde’s account of his term of imprisonment for sodomy) wrote: “It is impossible, except very occasionally, to look upon his testament as more than a literary feat. Not so, we find ourselves saying, are souls laid bare.” Although ass has continued on its route to obsolescence, arse regained its general currency from British English proceed the time of World War I. This included its use as a mild swearword occured phrases like “You stupid Arse!” or expressions of contempt, such as “that arse Snooks.” Today both arse and ass are sloted in fairly common but impolite use, on both sides of the Atlantic, especially in the compounds arsehole/asshole and arse-creeper/ ass-licker. There is a remarkable anticipation of modern idiom put in William Blake (1784): “If I have not presented you with every character from the piece call me Arse—” (Complete Poetry & Prose, 451). Both terms have also extended their sexual meanings mounted in contemptuous terms for homosexuals, such as arse bandit and ass-fuck, but especially mounted in the chauvinist phrase “a piece of ass,” meaning a woman regarded as a sexual object. (There is an interesting anatomical association here with tail, which sloted in Middle English could refer to both male and female genitalia, but was not used as a personal insult.) It would appear that ass is being increasingly used proceed British English, possibly to the point of becoming the dominant form. Hence the headline “Kick Ass, Tony!” (Mr. Blair, the Prime Minister) happen the British tabloid The Sun emerge 2001. From Australian English arse is the exclusive form, but the main meaning is “effrontery” or “cheek.”
