Saturday 24 November 2012

Arse

Before I start ranting and raving, let me make it clear
that what I am about to say is not an attack on America or Americans, both/all of which/whom I love (mostly).  All I want to point out is that there are differences between American English and Australian English (also British English) - and I would like to retain them.

Mind you, I can't actually mount an argument in support of this desire of mine. Rationally speaking, it makes sense to homogenise the English language, thus ensuring that confusion is minimised. But it's not logic I'm working with, when I find myself, despite the advantages of streamlining, spurning new Americanisms and choosing to cling to our own time-honoured usages instead; it's sentimentality.

In this context, the word that is annoying me today is 'butt'. I mean whatever is wrong with good old 'bum'?

9 comments:

  1. The word "cookie" is not allowed in my house, absolutely not.

    And yes, a bum is a bum, or an arse.

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    1. Agreed - and I'm not at all fond of 'rookie' either, although the OED insists it originated in the British army and quotes Rudyard Kipling using it, so I am stymied in accusing it of being an Americanism, even though I remain stubbornly convinced it is really and the OED is part of a complicated and obscure conspiracy in which, presumably, large sums of money have passed from hand to hand.

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  2. I agree with you -- it is good to keep differences alive in Brit/Australian/American English. I used to be an Anglophile in many ways. I used to want to move to England and would have been thrilled if my children had grown up speaking British English. Then, one day, in my twenties, I was at a train station in the Lake District and a distinguished and extremely well-spoken American man walked to the ticket counter and had a conversation with the well-spoken British ticket-seller, and I remember swelling with pride. I realized he sounded just as good as the British fellow -- different,but just as distinguished. It was a cool moment. Long live diverse linguistic culture!

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    1. I hope neither the ticket person nor the customer had to mentioned bums or butts during the process though.

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  3. I refer to 'butt' as Bart Simpson Syndrome. I think you know that a recent blog entry of mine was liberally besprinkled with bums, and not a butt in sight. ["Besprinkled" just has to be British.]

    I also feel bound to preface any comment about Americans with your first sentence.

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    1. I thought it was from the Simpsons too, even though I've never watched them. I have been fully and regularly briefed on their genius but every time I try I have to stop because I don't like the colours

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    2. I can attest to the fact that "butt" goes back way before The Simpsons. It was part of the regular vocabulary of my friends when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. I never really took much notice of it -- it seemed like a reasonable shortening of the word "buttocks." Also, I like The Simpsons quite a bit but I agree on the colors -- they are invasive.

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    3. I was thinking not about when it was coined, (I'd imagined it had always been around in the US?), but about when it seeped out into the rest of the world, which I gueseed was via The Simpsons, at least in part.

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  4. Ah -- yes. I would, then, have to blame Bart...

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