Who knew?! ;-)

[Jonathan Lighter]

Can you believe I actually made a mistake? It's doubly embarrassing because
I misread HDAS!

To keep it brief, here are some early exx. of current synechdochic "poss. +
_ass_":

1698-1719 in Thomas D'Urfey _Pills to Purge Melancholy_ IV 200: A Pox of
their A-ses. [1788 Francis Grose _Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (ed. 2) s.v.:
Bring your a--e to an anchor, i.e. sit down.] 1817 in Anne Royall _Letters
from Alabama_ 89: "D--n your _ars_ and your _finities_," said the farmer.
1865 in Samuel P. Boyer _Naval Surgeon_ I 360: The old captain says ...that
he was a "damn fool" for leaving the service. "Yes!" says he. "I must say
that I kicked my --- out of the service." 1916 T. S. Eliot in V. Eliot
_Letters_ 125: Her taste was klassic/ And as for anything obscene/ She said
it made her ass sick.


Notes beyond HDAS: 1788 is in brackets because it's almost literal, just
as 1698-1719 is not, or is at least much less so. 1817 involves a pun on a
preceding remark about "affinities"; yet the word-play would seem to be
impossible without an existing idiom "poss. + _arse_"; cf. too
the then-common phrase "Damn your eyes!" "Arse/ass" would have been an
inviting substitution; of interest also is the rural Southern locale. 1916
perfectly exemplifies current usage.


(My confusion arose because in reviewing HDAS I missed the subtle - some may
say too subtle - distinction between _ass_  n., 4a and 4b.)

JL

On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 7:26 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Who knew?! ;-)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 7:17 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > In certain circles.
>
> Indeed.
>
> --
> -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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