The ass and the arse

There's an interesting ambiguity, in America at least, behind what we mean when we call insult someone for being an "ass."  Famously, a Dickens character says "the law is a ass--an idiot."  What sort of an ass is the basis of the character's metaphor?  It is most likely the four-legged beast of burden, not the sitting-end of a person.   Dickens, in a crude mood, would probably have called his nether-end his "arse": this is the British word for the body part because, until the nineteenth century, "ass" was reserved just for the animal.  However, for me the situation is different.  As a modern, urban American I don't have much experience around the animal, the "ass."  An ass is still a stupid person, but the metaphor is anatomical: When I use the word I most likely have the image of the buttocks of a person (or some animal--think how "horse's ass" = "fool") when I call you an "ass"--it's the end without the brains in it, for sure. 

In the nineteenth century (according to spellings in Bryan Garner's Dictionary of Modern American Usage, to the Oxford English Dictionary, and to Jonathan Lighter's Historical Dictionary of American Slang), in Britain and America "arse" began to be pronounced as what would sound to an American like "ahss" or "ass."  The second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary says that "arse" became "ass" as a "vulgar and dialect sp[elling] and pronunciation of arse"; other dictionaries aren't too helpful as to the source of the change; certainly the British change at that time of most syllable-end rs to the schwa sound (the vowel in "good") must have had something to do with it.

Etymologically, "ass" the animal and "arse" the body part are very different words.  The word for the animal in Old English was "assa/asse," (masc./fem.) with the alternative "esol" (see also the supplement; Germans still say "Esel").  There's a forest of cognates in the Germanic and Celtic languages that are dealt with in good etymological dictionaries like the OED, C. T. Onions' Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, and the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology; they trace the word all the way back to a Sumerian (!) cognate anšu, with the Latin "asinus" as the direct source. 

I'm of course far more interested in where "arse" comes from.  It's Old English, and the standard Old English dictionary Bosworth-Toller supplies the spelling "ears" and various delightful compounds like "ears-ende" for buttocks and "ears-gang" for latrines and their contents.  The Middle English Dictionary has a lengthy and fascinating entry on "ars." The other older Germanic languages had cognates and there's a Greek cognate ὄρσος which evolved into ὄρρος; Eric Partridge's Origins points to a Hittite cognate arraš.  There's apparently a proto-Indo-European cognate as well.

OK.  So what's the difference between an ass and a donkey?  Nothing, apparently (I think Americans, in view of the anatomical "ass," will always say "donkey"); it's a dialect or slang word first recorded in 1785 in George Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

"Professionalism" in America

Brian Garner complains in his Dictionary of American Legal Usage about how so many jobs are now said to be done by "professionals"--hairstylists, the "professional military," and so on--as opposed to the traditional three professions of law, medicine and the clergy.  Knowing a trade, or doing something for a living, does not make one a professional--that comes from the intellectual content of one's work.

There's a lot of what I think of as title drift, too: making work seem more sophisticated or, I hope, dignified, by giving old jobs more impressive titles.  Think of the "associates" at stores like Walmart or Target, who aren't associated with the store except as hourly employees.  I've heard employees at such places referred to as "partners," which twists beyond recognition both the commonly understood meaning of "partners"--individuals who jointly engage in some enterprise for the common and, I think, more or less equal betterment of both, or the legal definition of partners as joint owners with personal liability for the debts of the partnership.  The word "clerk" is a very old example of title inflation.  It's connected to the word "cleric," and suggested especially someone who could read and write because such skills were found only rarely outside those of the second estate.  This emphasis on reading and writing means "clerk" no longer signifies someone with a scholarly or religious background, but someone who keeps the books or other records in an establishment--think of clerks of court.  But "clerk" has been extended to people who have no advanced skills at all, particularly to those working at the counter at convenience stores.

Sometimes new names can be made up to enhance a profession.  H. L. Mencken's The American Language reports on National Association of Realtors trademarking the name "Realtor" for their real-estate-agent members (they still own the trademark) and undertakers beautifying themselves with the term "mortician."  It's a joke to call a garbage hauler a "sanitation engineer," but did you know that 9-1-1 dispatchers seem to really be called "public safety telecommunicators?"

Your word of the day: publican

"Publicans" in the New Testament are ostracized and hated, and Christ gives them the special attention all the ostracized receive.

And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.  And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?  (King James Bible, Matthew 9)

Calling the owner of a "public house" or "pub" a publican must be a pun based on the various references to publicans in the Bible.  (By the way: H. L. Mencken in the 1930s, according to The American Language II, thought the American word for pub was "saloon"; in 2012 in America it's almost certainly a "bar.")  In the Greek bible these people were τελῶναι (/telonai/, related to our word "toll") and in Latin, publicani.  They were "tax farmers"--people who extorted from the population a set amount for the Roman government's tax revenue, and kept any surplus for themselves.  "Publican" has been used often as a general term of abuse.

By any other name...

I just heard an NPR announcer mention Japan's "conservative Liberal Democratic" party.  I confess I don't know what makes a Japanese political party more or less conservative; but at least in Britain they do you a favor and call their right-of-center party "Conservatives" and their left-of-center party "Liberal" (the Lib-Dems; I haven't forgotten Labor, for most of the 20th century the leftist party).  Canada and Australia also have self-evidently named parties, which is nice for us less-informed foreign observers.  The Germans have "Christian Democrats" and "Social Democrats," which at least hint at the party's ideological bases.

I suppose that having a name paradoxically opposed to one's place on the ideological spectrum allows Japan's Liberal Democratic political party to hedge its bets and change its points of view.  Why else do America's mainstream parties have names that are content-free (like much of our political debate); "Democratic" and "Republican?"  Parties in the United States have often had empty names.  Surely some party names hinted at their members' beliefs, as with the Federalists and the Populists.  (The Wikipedia pages concern themselves with terminology.)  But who can tell from the name what a "Democratic-Republican" stood for?

Having empty names like Democratic and Republican and the Japanese "Liberal Democratic" makes it much easier to attach ideologies to a specific name.  I think Americans often, in very casual discussion, call left-wing ideas generally "Democratic" and right-wing ones "Republican"; since the 1960s this is where both parties have fallen along the ideological spectrum, and these positions are now pretty ossified.  For instance--even I find it jarring to think of people named  "Democrats" (in Japan) being called "conservative"; it's just not how my political terminology works.  

The suffix "-bonics"

Justice J. Michael Eakin of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has used the term "legalbonics," which he described in 2012 as content-free comments or "stupid" objections.  The justice called clumsy legal writing "legalbonics" in 2009 as well, perhaps referring to what is normally called legalese.  (Pennsylvania Bar Institute, Legal Writing for the 21st Century).  A 2005, anonymous cite for "legalbonics" is here.

The suffix "-bonics" must be from the dimly remembered "Ebonics" controversy of the 1990s--a proposal that schools reach out to black children by giving lessons in the children's putative style of English, named from "ebony" + "phonics."  From this, "-bonics" has been taken jocularly to denote "a way of speaking."  I have found a few instances of the use of bonics from the era, meaning 1) some local dialect ("Bubba-bonics"¹ in Citrus County, Florida) or 2) some disparaged false dialect (Newt-bonics²; Pol-bonics³ [half-Polish English]; hick-bonics⁴).

Most striking about legalbonics (coming from a public figure like Justice Eakin) is that today it's a little bit non-politically-correct.  Grouping black English in with clumsy legal writing ignores the insistence of many linguists that black English has its own consistent grammar and other features.  Using "-bonics" is meant to evoke the Ebonics controversy and righteous indignation about teaching black English, as in the 1990s quotes footnoted below.  However, it's hard to imagine Judge Eakin is evoking that in lectures to lawyers--there may be some continuing, oral use of the "-bonics" idea that's hard to find on the internet, and that has become a regular vocabulary item for bad or confused English.

For a grammar grinch like me--better, a lexicon-grinch--most striking is the peculiar creation of a suffix.  "Ebonics" really has the suffix "-ics"; the "-on-s" of "ebony" and of "phonics" were creatively (or lamely) lined up.    "Phonics" (from the Greek φωνή "sound of the voice" + "-ics," from -ικός, denoting a noun) is the source of the "-ics" suffix.  The coiners of "legalbonics" and other terms are create a new "-bonics" suffix for (bleh) comic effect.


1. Greg Hamilton, "Hey Bubba, whut chew think a' dis Ebonics nonsense?" St. Petersburg Times,  Jan. 5, 1997, 2.
2. George J. Wilberg, Letter to the Editor, Newsweek, March 3, 1997, 12.
3. Mary McGrory, "The GOP's Newt-bonics," Washington Post, Dec. 29, 1996, C1.
4. Kenneth Li, "Hick Meets Sick," Daily News [New York], May 4, 1997, 42.
 

"Folks" and folksiness

From the early years of the George W. Bush administration I’ve been hearing public speakers refer to others as “folks”—to sound more genuine, informal, democratic, maybe even American.   Paula Broadwell, the now-famous paramour of General David Petraeus started a lecture on her book with the following:

Before we get started I’d like to see how many veterans there are in the room, so I know I who I’m facing. Okay, well, first of all, thank you for all of your service and I know we might have a few folks that belong to Team Red White and Blue as well, are there any folks from this veterans’ support organization?  A couple of folks, okay great, thanks for coming.

Where one would usually say “people” or “individuals,” and then “anyone,” Broadwell gets in touch with her audience by using folks.  This is a folksy (that is, common-man, rural, simple) trope that Bush seems to have initiated—how else might a wealthy grandson of a senator-and-son of a CIA director/congressman show his natural small-town, everyday tendencies?  President Obama seems to have picked it up too.  I’m sure that we can multiply more and more political figures use of “folks.”  I wish I had saved a comment I once saw, sent to the IRS by a tax accountant on behalf of a large corporation, objecting to a new tax regulation in the name of “folks.”

The folksy use of “folks” seems like a newish innovation--maybe a Bush-era innovation.  The plural is an American innovation, recognized before the American Civil War in Noah Webster’s great dictionary.  He notes (s.v. “folk”) that 

“Originally and properly it had no plural, being a collective noun ; but in modern use, in America, it has lost its singular number, and we hear it only in the plural.  It is a colloquial word, not admissible into elegant style.”

In the definition: 

1. People in general, or any part of them without distinction.  What do folks say respecting the war?  Men love to talk about the affairs of other folks.

2. Certain people, discriminated from others, as old folks and young folks.  So we say, sick folks ; poor folks ; proud folks.” (The 1848 printing of the 1845 edition.)

In the authorities collected in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage there “folks” are typically referred to either as rural types, or in Webster’s definition, people in general or  “certain people, discriminated from others” sense.  There’s no indication that “folks” is used in the sense of particular citizens who might have particular, individual experiences, as Broadwell uses it and as Bush and Obama do. 

So these sources don't seem to indicate the politically valuable type of folksiness that Bush and Obama have tried to evoke, and with which they have infected other politically-minded people.  It strikes me as a very recent innovation.  My main objection to this use of "folks" is that it’s simply not genuine—it’s an attempt to inject some average-ness, some common-ness,  some unassuming-ness into the speech of persons who are definitely not average or common or normal.

Impressive title

I just read in Debrett's Correct Form that in Malta "the Executive Head of the University is termed "Rector Magnificus."