Taboo replacements

[Rick Mc Callister]

[snip]
Reminds me of the use of "ass" in older Biblical
>translations: "Thou shalt not covet they neighbor's ... ass".  :-)

	So why didn't this word's homonym come into American English as
"arse" with an /R/?
	Was <ass> "buttocks" borrowed from later British English or from
New England or Southern English?

[ Moderator's comment:
  When I lived in Connecticut, I met people who made a distinction between
  "arse" and "ass" consistently, not as a learned item but in casual speech.
  --rma ]