"piece of ass" huge antedate

[Mullins, Bill CIV (US)]

It'll probably turn out he bought a burro.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Jesse Sheidlower
> Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2014 2:08 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: "piece of ass" huge antedate
>
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
> Subject:      "piece of ass" huge antedate
>
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> --------
>
> Tipped off by an article in The Atlantic.
>
> "piece of ass" is in OED from 1816 in possibly euphemistic variants
> like "piece of stuff/skirt/tail", but OED's earliest with "ass" is
from
> 1978.
> HDAS has evidence from the 1910s onwards. But a history of
fraternities
> reveals a young Princeton man with this charming thing to tell a
friend
> back home:
>
>   1857 J. Holland _Let._ 14 May in N. L. Syrett _Company He Keeps_
> (2009)
>   75, I did get one of the nicest pieces of ass some day or two ago.
>
> Haven't checked the footnote in Syrett, so I don't know what the
> ultimate source of the letter is.
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
>
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