Why Americans should be arsed to say “arse” instead of “ass”

I really enjoy the American version of the English language, whether spoken or written. True, there are certain phrases I wish they'd never invented (to die for and he's good people, for example) - but on the whole I reslish the differences between our language and theirs. But there's one (fundamental?) English word I wish they hadn't altered - and that's arse. I simply can't figure out what has been gained by changing it to ass.

For a start, ass - meaning the equine animal, obviously - appears 154 times in The Bible, so that would be 154 fewer excuses for children to snigger in church. (The word donkey, which Americans use as a substitute, does not appear in the King James version.)

It would enable Americans to use the excellent phrase I really can’t be arsed as well as I don’t give a rat’s ass (of which I'm quite fond).

It would save English film-goers and TV viewers from the cognitive dissonance created by tough characters growling “You’re an ass”, which really should be followed by “…Jenkins, and a frightful little blister to boot.” (This used to spoil whole episodes of House for me, where it was regularly used as a substitute for jerk, and where it always sounded anaemic and weedy as an insult.)

It would allow Americans to fully appreciate the line from the introductory voice-over of the 1960 film, The Pure Hell of St Trinian’s:  “There’ll always be trouble when there’s arson around.”

It would also help them to understand the shock – and laughter - caused by Richard Attenborough’s use of the word in the 1948 film The Guinea Pig (known as The Outsider in the States). Attenborough, playing a working class boy awarded a scholarship to a public school, objects to being assaulted by the other boys after being asked to bow before a statue of the school’s founder. An interview with the headmaster ensues:

HEADMASTER: Did you know that Henry VIII founded this school?

BOY: Yes, sir.

HEADMASTER: Isn’t that a good enough reason for paying your respects?

BOY: That isn’t why they do it. They just want you to bend down so they can kick you up the arse.

These lines - which can be found at 10.20 – still make me laugh:

And, of course, it would illuminate the splendid series of “Bob Fleming” sketches from The Fast Show:

Let’s admit that Britons haven’t always successfully distinguished their asses from their arses. As a boy, I believed that the novelist Evelyn Waugh had been guilty of crudeness   during his 1960 Face to Face TV interview, when, having been asked how he reacted to criticism he responded: “I’m afraid if someone praises me I think ‘What an arse’, and if they abuse me I think ‘What an arse.’” Waugh was actually describing his critics as donkeys, but using an upper-class long “a” to do so - just as people used to talk of attending Mahss rather than Mass. (The interview can be found here, and the relevant exchange is at 25’28”).

See? Start talking about arses, and you’ve stepped into a minefield!

Of course, Americans have always had a habit of dropping “r”s from words – bust and cuss and hoss are obvious examples - but most modern Americans (judging mainly from TV) have subsequently re-inserted the missing letter (in the last two examples, at least). But when it comes to ass, it seems, they have – for some reason or other – resisted the desire to repent. It may have some connection with the fact that most Americans are rhotic speakers, like the Scots, while most of us who live in South-East England have non-rhotic accents. That means Americans – apart from New Englanders – sound the “r” in words like barn and cart, while I, for instance, say bahn and caht. We’re used to saying ahss – but saying arse with the “r” intact may just be too much of an effort (although it doesn’t seem to stop the Scots, despite their extreme rhoticism).

Maybe we could reach a compromise. Asshole is a different matter altogether – it’s not a patch on arsehole, mind you, but it does imply a certain menace, a barely-suppressed violence, which the English English version – being far more comic – lacks.

I’d be happy to leave America’s asshole alone, as long as I could get my hands on its ass: it's just too small and weedy and un-earthy and not in the least bit funny. I realise bum is a lost cause (pity, that) because they use it for other purposes, and, besides, have replaced it with the fairly effective butt. But I'd beg then to renounce bootie and keester (both of which I'm allergic to) and, instead, to start arsing around again.