Steve Bell’s cartoon on Tuesday showed Tony Blair singing a version of “my Way” which rose to the final line “I gave Bush Myyyyyy ass.” This raised
\nan important question of principle. Why not “arse?”. Tony Blair is a British Prime Minister. When he was a boy, he had a bottom. When he grew up, he
\nacquired an Arse; not, as an American would, an “ass”. An Arse is one of the distinguishing marks of an Englishman. Has Blair’s mysteriously
\nchanged nationality as a mark of presidential favour, or is there some more subtle semantic point at issue?<\/p>\n\n
Sometimes the American and English spellings make useful distinctions of meaning. It’s obvious that Radio 3 makes programmes, whereas computers run
\nprograms.<\/p>\n\n
With “arse” and “ass” the distinction also seems clear. An arse is an essentially comic organ, wholly devoid of dignity. It is something to be
\nkicked, or to land with a bump on. At a pinch, soldiers can do something at “split-arse speed”, as Bill Deedes regiment planned to do in the war.
\nBut even here, there connotations are of undignified haste.<\/p>\n\n
An “ass” is an organ with a much wider range of uses. It can flatter, for one thing. A person may have “a great ass” and be complemented by this. “A
\ngreat ass”, in English, is an old-fashioned idiot. “A great arse” is an Anglo-Saxon term, meaning a large bum.<\/p>\n\n
In American, a great “ass” is not just a beautiful body part. It expresses the inner beauty of its owner. An “arse” is always at most a part of the
\nbody. If we want to express an opinion of the whole man, we have to say he’s an “arsehole”. But your “ass” is a much more comprehensive organ, and
\nalmost always a synecdoche for the whole American.<\/p>\n\n
When Americans get their “asses” in gear, or have them put in a sling, this is no mere posterior accident. It is a life-changing event. If an
\nEnglishman is trying to escape form a sticky situation, and gets to the point where his arse is out of there, it means he’s stuck half-way through
\nthe window. An American, with his ass out of there, is away and running free.<\/p>\n\n
The only time that “ass” is used in an English, anatomical sense, the connotations are not comical but humiliating. To own someone’s ass has Steve Bell’s cartoon on Tuesday showed Tony Blair singing a version of “my Way” which rose to the final line “I gave Bush Myyyyyy ass.” This raised an important question of principle. Why not “arse?”. Tony Blair is a British … Continue reading
\nunmistakable overtones of prison rape — a crime which occupies an extraordinarily prominent place in the American imagination, as if all
\nrelationships of power could be reduced to this one act. This proves, I think, that Steve Bell knew exactly which of “ass” and “arse” was, in the
\ncircumstances, the mot juste.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"