eggcorn: "profound" (profane) words

[David A. Daniel]

Can't really say that Brits do this and Brits do that because there are
about a gazillion different dialects and accents on that one small island.
But, yes, in general, Brits pronounce the r in arsehole.
DAD

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Beverly Flanigan
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 1:47 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: eggcorn: "profound" (profane) words

At 06:45 PM 7/31/2007, you wrote:
>
>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/.

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