ass

   ‘This plaintiff here’, says Dogberry the constable, in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (5:i) ‘did call me ass; I beseech you, let it be rememb’red in his punishment.’ Dog-berry is certainly not alone amongst Shakespearean characters in being likened to a donkey. ‘Thou whoreson ass’ occurs in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (2:v), ‘preposterous ass’ in Taming of the Shrew (3:i), ‘thou scurvy valiant ass’ is in Troilus and Cressida (2:i), while in A Midsummer Night’s Dream an ass is made of Bottom the Weaver in no uncertain terms.

   In modern times, ‘ass’ is a fairly mild insult when it refers to the animal. ‘You feeble ass’ is said by a boy to a girl in Mariana, by Monica Dickens, but it arouses no great passion. There is a similar ‘you soppy ass’ said by one boy to another in End of a Summer’s Day, by Adrian Vincent. ‘Ass’ by itself becomes a covert endearment between lovers in The Limits of Love, by Frederic Raphael, Unconditional Surrender, by Evelyn Waugh, and An American Dream, by Norman Mailer. Fortunately, in the latter, there is a clear indication that the animal is meant. ‘“You’re rude. In fact…” “Yes?” “Ass” she said with a Southern bray, and we beamed at each other.’ Later, in the same novel, several instances of ‘you ass’ occur where the buttocks are referred to, as in ‘you ass-hole’ (British ‘arsehole’). The useful clue given in context is the fact that one speaker uses ‘you black-ass ego’ as well as ‘you ass’, while another speaker switches to ‘you jackass’ when he means the animal, otherwise the spelling ‘ass’ is decidedly ambiguous when used by an American writer. From an etymological point of view, ‘arse’ is certainly the correct form to use when referring to the buttocks. ‘Ass’ for ‘arse’ had developed as a dialectal pronunciation by the mid-nineteenth century in Britain, but did not replace the normal arse pronunciation as in the USA.