"Two nations divided by a common language"

I thought of this famous George Bernard Shaw quote when I was interviewed by a BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) "presenter" (English for "announcer") a few days ago; she told me that her producer had agreed to let me use the word "asshole" to describe the title of my book on the air without censoring so long as it wasn't used "gratuitously ."  Then I asked her about using the word "arse" on the air, and she said she wasn't sure because she believed that many people in the audience would be more offended by "arse."   The presenter added that she used the word "asshole" instead of "arse" at times because it is less offensive in her country. I laughed because, with members of the media in the U.S., I sometimes use the word "arse" instead of "asshole" because they find it less offensive.  And to my American ears, the "ARSE test" sounds considerably less obscene than the "asshole test."

Comments

[Shefaly]

Was the producer thinking of My Fair Lady when Audrey Hepburn's exhortations to a horse to 'move its blooming arse' sends a few women into a fainting spell?

Except that this is BBC, one could say a lot of things about the 'offence' component in our everyday language here. Some people use many supposed swear-words as punctuation and I don't mean those who are described as 'arseholes' in your book.

[Lilly]

Bob,

do you know which programme have you been interviewed for and when it will be aired?

You may remember I raised the point some time ago wrt British sensibilities. We have here different words - our current Chancellor, Gordon Brown's behaviour was today described by his former permanent secretary in Financial Times interview thus:

Lord Turnbull himself said, in relation to Mr Brown's behaviour: "You can choose whether you are impressed or depressed by that, but you cannot help admire the sheer Stalinist ruthlessness of it all."

[Carmine Coyote]

Bob,

In the British version of English (the one that I was born and brought up speaking), you can sit on both an ass and your arse simultaneously. In fact, to sit on an ass (spelled that way it always means a donkey), you MUST sit on your arse too!

When I came to live in the USA, I found all these cases of gratuitous animal cruelty, when people were exhorted to "kick ass." I mean, what's the poor donkey ever done to them?