Who knew?! ;-)

[Jonathan Lighter]

I was thinking of "(one's) ass" as a general intensifier, e.g., "Tell him to
get his ass out of there."  The 1821 ex. in HDAS reads: "Major Gram...swore
he would not budge an inch to save his ****."

Asterisks like that always make me nervous: to some degree they are an
argument from ignorance. But there are four of them and the near
alliteration between "inch" and "arse" helps to persuade me in this case.
(If, rather bizarrely, "soul" were the word meant, there would be no reason
not to print the initial "s.")

JL

On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 3:38 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Who knew?! ;-)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 8:20 AM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > To a more literal era, Swift's "after your Arse" would have meant only
> > "_behind you; in your wake_."
> >
>
> The OED notes exactly that. But what I find interesting is that that
> is precisely the meaning that I would assign to the phrase today,
> under whatever circumstances that I happen to hear it or read it. I
> can't think of any other possible interpretation. It's eerie, even as
> an instance of complete and totally-random coincidence.
>
> BTW, does your "meant _only_" intend to say that there's another
> possible, incorrect interpretation available that has escaped my
> notice? Why does anyone feel that that addendum WRT the proper
> analysis is necessary? Well, I can WAG that editors of the OED may
> feel that the string *lacks* any clear interpretation. So, they've
> supplied one.
>
> Youneverknow.
>
> But you?
>
> "Oh, no, John! No, John! No, John! No!" :-)
>
> Ever been in one of those situations in which you have to introduce
> one friend to another, but you keep blocking on the name? Till,
> finally, you give up and admit it? "I'm really embarrassed, Wilson,
> but I just can't think of your name!"
>
> I don't know that that's ever happened to anyone in reality, but it
> makes for a funny, New Yorker- school cartoon, right up there, IMO,
> with, "John, this is Bill. Bill, this is goodbye," WRT introductions.
>
> OTOH, as to whether anyone was using _peece_ in the sense of "of arse"
> back in the day, WTF? It's possibly a possibility, but *I* "don' know
> f' sho'." Your guess is better than mine! :-).
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
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