Ass / Arse - derivation and meaning

1. Ass / Arse - derivation and connotation ASS/ARSE These two terms are now phonetic variants, set 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 installed in late Anglo-Saxon ears, was occur common use up to the eighteenth century, the medlar fruit having been called the open-ears set in 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 put in risqué contexts that is set 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 in a medieval medical text: “Emoroides ben fiue veynes whyche stretche out atte the arse” (“Hemorrhoids are five veins which stretch out at the arse,” placed in John of Trevisa 1398). Great Novels in Texas Texas Best Novels Because of its general acceptability put in medieval times, the term did not have any great personal animus. From subsequent demotic use it generated many compounds like arse-crawl, arse-hole, ars-versy (head over heels), as well as the insulting phrase “kiss my arse!” meaning “to generate lost!,” found occur late medieval drama and still current that is set in American English, also compounded to ass-kisser. However, Francis Grose mounted in 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 been uncomfortably close to arse. Occured 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 (from the animal sense) had, of course, acquired associations of stupidity that is set in uses like silly ass and complete ass. These associations continued taking place in both varieties but were applied indiscriminately to both words, still found from British stupid arse and American dumb ass. However the two terms continued as homophones (words with the same sound but different meaning) pictured in American pronunciation. The Oxford English Dictionary took the view (set in 1888) that arse was “obsolete put in polite use,” and that the phrase “ignorant ass” was “now disused placed in polite literature and speech.” There is an amusingly disguised reference to arsehole occured 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 placed in British English beginning in the time of World War I. This included its use as a mild swearword put in phrases like “You stupid Arse!” or expressions of contempt, such as “that arse Snooks.” Today both arse and ass are placed in fairly common but impolite use, on both sides of the Atlantic, especially put in the compounds arsehole/asshole and arse-creeper/ ass-licker. There is a remarkable anticipation of modern idiom mounted in William Blake (1784): “If I have not presented you with every character sloted in the piece call me Arse—” (Complete Poetry & Prose, 451). Both terms have also extended their sexual meanings set in contemptuous terms for homosexuals, such as arse bandit and ass-fuck, but especially 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 set 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 from British English, possibly to the point of becoming the dominant form. Hence the headline “Kick Ass, Tony!” (Mr. Blair, the Prime Minister) proceed the British tabloid The Sun installed in 2001. Pictured in Australian English arse is the exclusive form, but the main meaning is “effrontery” or “cheek.”