Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to The final analysis

And that differs from being an...
Robert — (archived)

...asshole, how?

I guess it depends on how you define "asshole", and like pornography, I know assholiness when I see it. "Asshole" is a very versatile epithet.

But of course so many at the Zone place a premium on scientific exactitude that maybe should turn our collective intellect toward coming up with a concrete definition of "asshole".

In broad application "asshole" makes a comparison between a person and a part of the human body that most people are grateful is far away from our sensoriums. Unpleasant to be around is part of the definition. "Asshole" subsumes the old "you stink!" into itself. By association it links the epithet to the even-more-universal "shit". A person who's unpleasant to be around, stinks, and is associated with shit.

We shouldn't be distracted by the generality of "asshole", and not consider its specificity. A lot of the assholes I've known were anal retentive types, which contributed to their unpleasantness, and so perhaps the choice of "asshole" to describe those people conveys the additional nuance that they're anal retentive.

An "asshole" is unpleasant to be around, stinks, is associated with shit, and anal retentive.

Sounds like the Bush Administration to me. Wadda you think?

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