Rhotic Ass or Arse?

Young men in 'Little Britain' understand how the adult world works by following their local football team. If the Manager says one thing and does something else; the Manager might gain some temporary advantage but the Manager loses the faith of the fans.

So, how do young people learn how the real world works?

Particularly if they cannot rely on teachers to say how things really are or their teachers are politically indoctrinated (right wing or left wing).


Humour


Humour can be subversive.


In being funny, close to the edge, (cutting edge), humour can inform without saying something directly.




An expression you will sometimes hear in 'Little Britain' is:


"Are you trying to be funny !!!"




This will be said in a different tone of voice to:

"Are you pulling my leg?"

Or

"Are you taking the Mickey?"





(Mickey or Mick: Are you acting as if I was an ignorant person who does not understand what I am trying to do?)


Mickey: pronounced so it goes with mouse. (Not 'Mike- ey')

Mickey Mouse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mickey Mouse is a comic animal cartoon character who has become an icon for The Walt Disney Company. Mickey Mouse was created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mouse - Cached - Similar

Mickey Finn (drugs) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A Mickey Finn (or simply Mickey) is a slang term for a drink laced with a drug (especially chloral hydrate) given to someone without their knowledge in ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Finn_(drugs) - Cached - Similar

Web definitions for mickey
Paddy: (ethnic slur) offensive term for a person of Irish descent
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn - Definition in context

This Topic was originally called 'South Park'. However some 'Person', decided to Post a Reply full of obscenities.


arsed verb: to be arsed context "I cannot be arsed."

arse noun

ass noun

asshole description

arsehole description



Is a 'description' an 'adjective' - a word describing something, or a thing - a 'noun'?

'Ass' American English

'Arse' British English


The British English word has an 'r' in it. Does that mean that it is rhotic?

i.e. The 'r' is pronounced, rather than silent.

<<'Ass' American English

'Arse' British English


The British English word has an 'r' in it. Does that mean that it is rhotic?

i.e. The 'r' is pronounced, rather than silent. >>


No, it does not mean it is rhotic just because it is spelled with an R. Nonrhotic speakers still have all the same R's in their written language that rhotic speakers have -- they just pronounce the words differently out loud.

That change in pronunciation also allows them to use an R-spelling to indicate what actually sounds like an "ah". When a nonrhotic person says "arse", what comes out actually sounds like "ahss" -- essentially "ass" with a broad "father" A instead of a "cat" A. The two words are simply variants of each other.

Essentially, for nonrhotic speakers an R that follows a vowel simply makes that vowel get held a little longer, as if it had been doubled. It never gets voiced, and it never really colors the vowel preceding it, as it does for a rhotic speaker.


However, the etymology of "arse" suggests that it is in fact the original version of the word:

<<arse
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology | 1996 |

arse OE. ærs (ears) = MLG. ars, MDu. aers (Du. aars), OHG. ars (G. arsch), ON. ars :- Gmc. *arsaz :- IE. *orsos, whence also Gr. órrhos; cf. ourā́ tail (:- *orsā)

...and that it was once pronounced rhotically, as written. It lost its R-sound twice, i.e., not just when RP developed-- "ass" is actually a non-rhotic variation that must have happened before the broad-A trend, because the original flat A is retained:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ass

slang for "backside," first attested 1860 in nautical slang, in popular use from 1930; chiefly U.S.; from dial. variant pronunciation of arse (q.v.). The loss of -r- before -s- attested in several other words (e.g. burst/bust, curse/cuss, horse/hoss, barse/bass). Indirect evidence of the change from arse to ass can be traced to 1785 (in euphemistic avoidance of ass "donkey" by polite speakers) and perhaps to Shakespeare, if Nick Bottom transformed into a donkey in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1594) is the word-play some think it is.

If the pattern in ass is the same as the pattern in hoss, bust, and cuss, then what we have is a peculiar example of an originally nonrhotic form being widely adopted by rhotic speakers, who simply don't even think of it as ever having had an R!

However, to Americans, words like hoss, bust, and cuss are considered very slangy and very Southern in flavor, and Southerners were originally largely nonrhotic. But they aren't likely to have invented the words -- they were no doubt brought over in that form from England. Ass is an exception -- ass is used all over the US, and is not considered Southern at all.

Californian pronouncing AUSSIE sounds like ARSEY to an Australian Ear...

How about cuss for curse?

I smoke weed.

I think that people like Uriel who smoke weed are absolutely beyond the pale.