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Some notes on 'asshat' (2018)
- shagie 4y agoI first encountered this term while playing Kingdom of Loathing. https://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Asshat 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 4y agoIn 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.
- skeaker 4y agoThis is where I first heard it as well. I remember that it stuck out as being novel in terms of crass humor, but according to the article the term predated it by several years at that point. Makes you wonder about what obscure new words are being used right now that you won't hear for another decade.
- AdmiralAsshat 4y agoValidation at last!
- indymike 4y agoFirst time I ever heard it was in the US Navy, Circa 1994-ish. Was possibly the most perfect word to describe a particular junior officer who loved to walk around the barracks grounds and harass in-uniform sailors who failed to salute him. "Oh, look it's Ensign Asshat."
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- PrimeDirective 4y agoThere's a Finnish stand-up comedian who also pondered on the many possibilities of the English word "ass". This is him on Conan's talk show: https://youtu.be/RAGcDi0DRtU https://youtu.be/RAGcDi0DRtU Funny enough, he mentions the same things the article does, especially the end of it.
- themodelplumber 4y ago> 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/ https://consciousstyleguide.com/general/
- Wistar 4y agoMy 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.
- markbnj 4y agoIt'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.
- emptybits 4y agoI 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 4y ago[deleted]
- datavirtue 4y agoYeah, it made its way into my quiver by hanging around slashdot for years.
- sethammons 4y agoThat's where I learned it too :)
- ChickeNES 4y agoThere and Fark for me
- JKCalhoun 4y agoIf I had to guess: it is a version of asshole you might be able to say in front of your mother.
- TylerE 4y agoI’ve always taken it had being derived from this 1976 movie line: https://movie-sounds.org/western-movie-quotes/quotes-with-sound-clips-from-the-outlaw-josey-wales/you-showed-us-now-get-in-line-before-i-kick-you-so-hard-you-ll-wear-your-ass-for-a-hat https://movie-sounds.org/western-movie-quotes/quotes-with-so...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pohl 4y agoAnother 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.
- Apocryphon 4y agoConfirmed by OP: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/what-does-assclown-mean-slang-definition https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/what-does-assc...
- OJFord 4y agoNot that it was not the intended reading though, unless I'm missing it, just that the term likely came from the film?
- sph 4y agohttps://xkcd.com/37/ https://xkcd.com/37/
- atoav 4y agoOf course there is an xkcd about it
- Tao332 4y agoVintage xkcd from the grid paper days.
- julianlam 4y agoAm I old?
- LordDragonfang 4y ago
- li2uR3ce 4y agoIn case you need asshat quantified... > Statistics for asshat > Look-up Popularity > > Top 6% of words https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/asshat https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/asshat
- zdw 4y ago> 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/ https://xkcd.com/37/
- function_seven 4y ago37? I can't believe it was that long ago. (Didn't even click your link, I know what it is :)
- benhoyt 4y agoIn Kiwi (New Zealand) slang we often add "as" to adjectives, like "sweet as" or "good as" to mean "no problem!" or similar ... without something after the "as" to compare it to (kind of like "good as gold" but without the word "gold"). Anyway, my Kiwi friend (a guy) studied in the U.S. for a while, and once he held open the door for a girl, and she said, "Thanks!" He called after her in chirpy Kiwi slang, "sweet as!" She heard, "Sweet ass!" and was not impressed! After a moment he realized what she'd heard and tried to explain, I'm not sure whether she believed him or not. :-)
- rmatt2000 4y agoThreads like this are why I come to HN.
- adrianmonk 4y ago> 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.
- tlb 4y ago> 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_ 4y agoA 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 4y ago> 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".
- hunter2_ 4y agoTouché (or tushy, as the case may be).
- tshaddox 4y agoI've never been aware of your interpretation. I've always understood "fat-ass" to just mean "fat," or perhaps closely-associated derogatory traits like "sedentary" or "lazy."
- PantaloonFlames 4y agoWhy is it fat-ass or dumb-ass, and not fat+ass and dumb+ass ?
- JadeNB 4y ago
- zaps 4y agoJamey Jasta the poor man’s Mike Muir
- mkr-hn 4y agoThis 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 4y ago‘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 4y agoI don't think so. This one had to do with a memorial for someone who was murdered.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- xoxxala 4y agoI'm doing my part! I use "plonk" once or twice a day, which is probably more than the average person.
- scotty79 4y agoHere's and interesting and fun take on similar words: https://youtu.be/RAGcDi0DRtU?t=120 https://youtu.be/RAGcDi0DRtU?t=120
- golem14 4y agoThe 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 4y ago[deleted]
- pkamb 4y agoI think its usage on the internet grew as an acceptable alternative to the banned word "asshole" on various message boards. https://ksot.net/banned/ 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.
- leoc 4y agoFor my money it probably started as a play on or corruption of ‘brass-hat’, the old unflattering slang word for a senior military officer.
- samatman 4y agoIs 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 4y agoI 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.
- neltnerb 4y agoAnd I first encountered it (2004?), exclusively verbally, as a way to soften asshole. As far as I could tell and assumed to this day, it was taken up primarily aesthetically (sounds nicer than asshole and looks nicer in text, literally aesthetics here). Still, it had the same implication of someone who is sort of oblivious to other people (asshole) but in a somewhat endearing or amusing or not all that serious a way.
- datavirtue 4y agoYou describe the BOFH. Total asshat.
- deaddodo 4y agoI can remember "asshat" being used among punks, goths, metalheads, hackers, etc during the 90s; for sure. At least, in Southern California.
- thrower123 4y ago
- bitwize 4y agoThought it came from Jeff K. on Something Awful, back when Something Awful was good.
- User23 4y agoThat’s my recollection as well. It spread to the forums, and like so many other terrible things spawned by that site, metastasized into the Internet.
- casion 4y agoThe 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.
- jfengel 4y agoIt'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.
- ahazred8ta 4y agoSome of the earliest recorded usages are found in court transcripts, where they wrote things down verbatim. One case from 1310 involved Roger F--kebythenavele. https://www.google.com/search?q=roger+by-the-navele https://www.google.com/search?q=roger+by-the-navele
- jameshart 4y agoThere 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.
- DoneWithAllThat 4y agoI’ve always associated this word with fark.com, I remember it being used frequently on that site around 2000.
- oceanghost 4y agoI am not trying to start a pissing contest-- just to point out how personal everyone's perspective is-- I remember it being quite fashionable in the early 90s in my area.
- livinginfear 4y agoMy 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.
- deaddodo 4y ago> It occupies the space between assez and asshead. The fact that asshead, a word I can honestly say I've never heard used in any English dialect, merited inclusion before asshat, a word I've heard a dozen times this last week, boggles my mind.
- ggm 4y agofor some reason, asshole is ruder than asshat. I think the fundamental (hah!) thing here is that ass, and fanny are somehow not rude, but hole is.
- JacobAldridge 4y agoAn aside, but one of my more fun small pranks involved two fortune cookies in the office circa 2007. I extracted the real fortunes, and inserted two of my own. When a friend dropped by, I handed him one and took the other. His fortune read "You are an asshat". Which surprised him somewhat, differing as it did from the usual fare. What blew him away was when I cracked my cookie and withdrew my fortune: "Your friend is an asshat".
- loudmax 4y agoMy favorite occurrence of "asshat" was by Metafilter moderator jessamin in 2006 justifying her decision to remove a comment. A bad argument made in good faith deserves a response, but trolling does not. Jessamin said that when she deletes a troll comment she didn't see the necessity in writing a letter explaining why: Dear asshat, you're being an asshat. I deleted your asshat comment. Please stop the asshattery. Love, jessamin This non-letter was set to music by her Metafilter co-moderator cortex: https://music.metafilter.com/480/Please-Stop-The-Asshattery https://music.metafilter.com/480/Please-Stop-The-Asshattery