[HN Gopher] Some notes on 'asshat' (2018) ___________________________________________________________________ Some notes on 'asshat' (2018) Author : hashamali Score : 98 points Date : 2022-05-11 20:15 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.merriam-webster.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.merriam-webster.com) | adrianmonk wrote: | > _the etymological note we have describes the linking of ass and | hat as "seemingly nonsensical"_ | | I always assumed an asshat is a person with their head up their | ass, i.e. they are wearing it as a hat. | Wistar wrote: | My late father-in-law and his buddies used the expression "uglier | than a hat full of assholes," and I always assumed that "asshat" | came from that. Guess I was wrong. | scotty79 wrote: | Here's and interesting and fun take on similar words: | | https://youtu.be/RAGcDi0DRtU?t=120 | tlb wrote: | > the etymological note we have describes the linking of ass and | hat as "seemingly nonsensical" | | What? It's obviously a reference to having your head up your ass, | thus turning your ass into a hat. | hunter2_ wrote: | A minor issue with that reasoning is that it doesn't explain | why you might use the word asshat to refer to a person who is | wearing an asshat. Asshatter would make a bit more sense, akin | to brownnoser. On the other hand, I guess words like fatass | have this same problem of equating the person with something | the person possesses. | JadeNB wrote: | > On the other hand, I guess words like fatass have this same | problem of equating the person with something the person | possesses. | | On the third hand, I'm not sure that "fatass" really means | "your ass is fat" specifically; I've always understood it to | mean "you are fat, and an ass." That is, I take it in this | respect to be like "dumbass": "you are dumb, and an ass", not | "your ass is dumb". | emptybits wrote: | I have loved this word since I first heard it. I assumed it | evolved out of the common expressions: "get your head out of your | ass" or "he's got his head up his ass". | | To me, this evokes an image of wearing one's ass as a hat. I love | the ridiculousness of picturing that. | [deleted] | golem14 wrote: | The article compares with a 15th century word ass-head, but IMO | ass-hat is really meaning arse-head, and ass-head refers to the | animal, making an ass-head closer to a stupid person, less a | detestable and disagreeable one. | [deleted] | AdmiralAsshat wrote: | Validation at last! | pkamb wrote: | I think its usage on the internet grew as an acceptable | alternative to the banned word "asshole" on various message | boards. | | https://ksot.net/banned/ | | "Asshat" also gives you plausible deniability for sneaking in | "ass" + the past tense of "shit". That's how I've always read it. | pohl wrote: | Another related word is "assclown" -- which, as far as I can | tell, was created accidentally when actor David Herman delivered | a line of dialoge with emphasis on the wrong syllable while | filming Office Space. | | He was meant to call Michael Bolton a "no-talent-ass clown", but | delivered the line as "no-talent ass-clown". | | Or something like that. And now assclown is a thing. | sph wrote: | https://xkcd.com/37/ | atoav wrote: | Of course there is an xkcd about it | Tao332 wrote: | Vintage xkcd from the grid paper days. | Apocryphon wrote: | Confirmed by OP: | | https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/what-does-assc... | OJFord wrote: | Not that it was not the intended reading though, unless I'm | missing it, just that the term likely came from the film? | wavefunction wrote: | nah Office resonates because it MIRRORED real life en verite, | not the other way around. That's always been Mike Judge's | strength, casting the actual as fantastic as it really is for | better or often worse. | | we were saying assclown or azzclown before the movie but it hit | so sweetly thus | shagie wrote: | I first encountered this term while playing Kingdom of Loathing. | https://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Asshat which puts | it at somewhere in the 2005 or so timeframe when I encountered | that term. | Tao332 wrote: | In my memory you had to craft it from two half-asses, but it | looks like they were really called bum cheeks. | | I remember first encountering the term on b3ta around the same | time. | leoc wrote: | For my money it probably started as a play on or corruption of | 'brass-hat', the old unflattering slang word for a senior | military officer. | themodelplumber wrote: | > In the case of pronoun usage, it really comes down to: Are you | being a nice person or an asshat?" -- Steve Kleinedler | (interviewed by Sarah Grey), Conscious Style Guide | (consciousstyleguide.com), "Conscious Language in the American | Heritage Dictionary," 22 Feb. 2018 | | I had no idea this guide for not being an asshat existed. That's | pretty interesting and could help a lot of would-be asshats who | don't feel comfortable hiding in actions-not-words territory | anymore. | | https://consciousstyleguide.com/general/ | Veen wrote: | [deleted] | bitwize wrote: | Veen wrote: | li2uR3ce wrote: | In case you need asshat quantified... | | > Statistics for asshat | | > Look-up Popularity | | > | | > Top 6% of words | | https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/asshat | samatman wrote: | Is the etymology actually obscure? I seem to recall it gaining | currency in the warblog era (late but not lamented) and it's a | way of saying someone has their head up their ass. They're | wearing their ass as a hat. | | I remember this being explained a lot in various comment sections | where folks would yell at each other about the war. It's hard for | me to see this as folk etymology since afaik it's where the word | itself comes from. Someone should ask Instapundit. | mordechai9000 wrote: | I first encountered "asshat" in the context of network | security: there are white hats, who are motivated by ethics and | social responsibility. There are black hats, who are motivated | by personal gain and seem to lack a sense of morality. Then | there are asshats, who don't care about anything other than | amusing themselves at other people's expense. | | I have absolutely no idea of this is the origin of the term, or | if it just fit there perfectly. | livinginfear wrote: | My impression was always that the term connoted one who was | wearing an ass as a hat, i.e. has their "head up their/an(?) | ass". Which as many would already know is an English idiom | connoting someone of poor manners. | zaps wrote: | Jamey Jasta the poor man's Mike Muir | zdw wrote: | > There is a profound difference between being in possession of a | "sweet-ass hat" and a "sweet asshat" | | Someone at MW has read: https://xkcd.com/37/ | function_seven wrote: | 37? I can't believe it was that long ago. (Didn't even click | your link, I know what it is :) | bitwize wrote: | Thought it came from Jeff K. on Something Awful, back when | Something Awful was good. | mkr-hn wrote: | This is the second Usenet-borne word I've seen enter the | dictionary recently. I forget what the other one was, though I | remember it had to do with graffiti and was popularized by rather | than created on Usenet. I think we're going to see this more and | more over the next decade or three as slow-burning words from the | early internet stumble into memes and discourse around major | events. | flobosg wrote: | 'Unfriend' is another one. | | > (...) though I remember it had to do with graffiti and was | popularized by rather than created on Usenet | | That one's probably _king_ as a verb (" _kinging_ New York"). | mkr-hn wrote: | I don't think so. This one had to do with a memorial for | someone who was murdered. | [deleted] | xoxxala wrote: | I'm doing my part! I use "plonk" once or twice a day, which is | probably more than the average person. | casion wrote: | The use of written word in these scenarios is always interesting | to me. I have video of me and some friends using the word | "asshat" predating their first recorded usage by almost a decade. | (I have no idea why I remembered that video when reading this... | but here it is on my hard drive) | | Ironically in a similar context, a bunch of punk rockers talking | about someone in a band we didn't like! | | I always wonder how many words have an etymology which predates | written use significantly due to the "class" of people who use | that word. This certainly seems to be a minor case at least. | jameshart wrote: | There are certainly academics who collect and study spoken | language corpora, not just written - it's very much a matter of | what gets collected and catalogued though. The fact that early | citations here are from Usenet speaks to the availability and | search ability of that corpus much more than to its role in the | origination of written speech. Transcripts of IRC and MUDs and | aim chats are not collected and indexed, so they don't get | referenced. | | Similarly with spoken corpora it tends to be things like | interviews with old people created to preserve dialect | recordings, or material from local radio news - rather than | random conversations among young people. | | I guess by virtue of 'tape in the studio just kept rolling' | there might be rather more recorded examples of band members | chatting away over the years than of other similar aged groups. | jfengel wrote: | It's pretty much universal. Etymologists and lexicographers | know that most words were in use for some time before being | written -- anywhere from years to centuries. They try to make | inferences by other means, as best they can. | | They gradually expand the corpus they can search. A lot of | words that are attributed to Shakespeare are gradually finding | earlier sources, often in manuscripts. They knew all along that | Shakespeare wasn't the first person to use a word (a common | myth), but that his works were widely printed and thus | survived. | | Those manuscripts still don't include spoken usages, and show | only the use by the class of people who could write. But it is | solid data, before they go off into more tenuous hypotheses. | dang wrote: | Can you post the clip somewhere? That would be interesting, and | apparently of historical significance! | markbnj wrote: | It's been a long time, but I seem to recall the term being used | to describe a specific animation performed over the head of a | fallen enemy when playing MMOs like Asheron's Call or Dark Age of | Camelot, which I played a lot of circa 2001 or so. | DoneWithAllThat wrote: | I've always associated this word with fark.com, I remember it | being used frequently on that site around 2000. | rmatt2000 wrote: | Threads like this are why I come to HN. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-05-11 23:00 UTC)