eggcorn: "profound" (profane) words

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 06:45 PM 7/31/2007, you wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       "David A. Daniel" <dad at POKERWIZ.COM>
>Subject:      Re: eggcorn: "profound" (profane) words
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Now, here is something interesting (at least to me): Only in fairly recent
>years have Brits begun referring to one another regularly - on the street,
>so to speak - as "assholes" or, for the more linguistically conservative,
>"arseholes". There was a time, not long ago, when "asshole" was considered a
>total Americanism, and British men referred to one another, in this context,
>after a few pints down t'pub, as "cunts". This practice does continue to
>this day though it is losing ground to the Americanism. So, I would be
>extremely interested to know what American females would think - in the name
>of political correctness - of British males referring to each other (male to
>male) as "cunts". I was going to make this multiple choice but there were
>too many permutations to make it viable.
>DAD

Would Brits ever pronounce the /r/ in "arsehole"?  Isn't that just a
spelling convention (or indeed the original spelling for the anatomical
term)?  And if they drop the /r/, would they voice the /s/?  I've only
heard Americans use it, affecting a British accent but pronouncing the /r/.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org