Robin: I recently had my spelling "ass" corrected to "arse" in an
Australian journal. The entire phrase was "as I wipe my [ass] [arse]."
I assumed that the meanings, at least, were the same (tho felt culturally
kidnapped, and of course the sound is completely different). Was something
added to my meaning as well?
I don't know if we ever used arse on this side except when putting on a
phony accent. Calling someone an ass probably comes from jackass, but then
becomes asshole or even roaring asshole. We also have "my ass," meaning
"nonsense." Which has nothing to do with "kiss my ass," which in turn has
nothing to do with slobbbering over a donkey.
"Ass" to mean the small equine has almost disappeared in the US except as
"jackass" for the male. Otherwise it's donkey or burro, and the female is
simply a jenny. And in popular zoological terminology, as in " the wild
ass, or onager."
Mark
At 07:53 PM 10/23/2003 +0100, you wrote:
>From: "Ken Wolman" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> > Reading it over, this is absolute shite (as it's spelled in the UK).
>Ignore.
> >
> > ken
>
>Actually, the distinction between "shit" and "shite" is more than simply
>orthographic.
>
>It parallels but isn't identical to the USAmerican use of "ass" versus the
>UK use of "arse".
>
>In both cases, the terms have a large common area (think Venn diagrams), but
>equally both can both be used by native-language speakers distinctly in
>different contexts.
>
>At the moment, the only example I can think of to make the distinction is
>that whereas it's possible to say, "You utter shit-head", you *can't* say
>"You utter shite-head".
>
>{Not thinking of you, Ken -- simply this was the first boundary-locution
>that came to my mind.
>
><g> }
>
>A quick and dirty (but wrong -- as with "ass" and "arse") distinction would
>have it that "shit" is USAmerican, "shite" UK.
>
>But honest, it's *lots* more complicated than that.
>
>Robin
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