eggcorn: "profound" (profane) words

[Paul Johnston]

Beverly,

  Most of the rhotic dialects do indeed (mostly) pronounce the /r/ in
arse, arsehole, and do not voice /s/.  Scots has this pattern all the
time.  I think the English rhotic dialects are divided, as there's a
rule  /rs/ > /s/ (or /rT/ > /T/ in some places, where /T/ is any
alveolar) in some of them--in some SW British dialects, you have
exactly the American pattern, where arse=ass, since /a/ or /ae/
lengthens in this position.  But I'm sure others (e. g. Shropshire)
have the  /r/, as did traditional Lancashire (probably gone now).
Incidentally, in Scots, arse is often airse, with /e/, but  I never
heard *airsehole in all my years over there.

Yours,
Paul
On Aug 1, 2007, at 12:47 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote:,

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIO.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: eggcorn: "profound" (profane) words
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>
> At 06:45 PM 7/31/2007, you wrote:
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>> 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/.
>
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