Arse and ass

Anglo-Saxon had a word œrs, meaning ‘rump, podex, buttocks,’ which evolved into Early Modern English arse, pronounced approximately [aɹs]. Normally, this evolution would have eventually produced a word spelled arse and pronounced [ɑːs] in Southern British and [ɑɹs] in General American. In Southern B...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the International Phonetic Association 1971-12, Vol.1 (2), p.79-80
Main Author: de Camp, L. Sprague
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Pronunciation
Taboos
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Anglo-Saxon had a word œrs, meaning ‘rump, podex, buttocks,’ which evolved into Early Modern English arse, pronounced approximately [aɹs]. Normally, this evolution would have eventually produced a word spelled arse and pronounced [ɑːs] in Southern British and [ɑɹs] in General American. In Southern British, this development followed its normal course. In Anglophone North America, however, the word developed differently. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a tendency appeared in America to level the combination ar = [aɹ], when followed by a voiceless lingual in certain combinations, with ‘short a’ = [æ]. Hence, for cartridge, hearth, parcel, appeared the pronunciations [ˈkætrιdƷ, hæθ, ].
ISSN:0025-1003
1475-3502
DOI:10.1017/S0025100300000281