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British people who say ‘asshole’ instead of ‘arsehole’ are ‘massive t**ts’ finds study

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By jamie hardingPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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British people who say ‘asshole’ instead of ‘arsehole’ are ‘massive t**ts’ finds study
Photo by Gursimrat Ganda on Unsplash

A study exploring the ever-evolving quirks of British speakers of the English language has confirmed that those who choose to say the invasive American ‘asshole’ over the classic British ‘arsehole’ are ‘massive twats of the highest order’.

Professor Simon Williams, Head of Modern Englishisms at Dunstable University, confirmed his team’s findings after conducting a series of interviews, eavesdropping sessions and ‘some low-level phone hacking.’

“We really did our homework on this,” said the Prof when pushed for comment.

“I’d had my suspicions regarding the class of tedious dunderhead who can’t even refer to a colleague, acquaintance or child of theirs as an arsehole without sounding like the worst kind of mid-Atlantic, overexposed to American sitcoms, twat imaginable.”

“So, I charged my undergrads with talking with, listening to, and hacking as many recruits as possible.

“For those who knew they were in the study, we asked a series of questions intended to provoke them into calling the interviewer a rude name.

“And if that didn’t work, we’d just show them a slideshow of Clarkson, Farage, Piers Morgan et al.

“That soon separated the wheat from the chaff – and the arseholes from the assholes.”

Professor Williams also revealed that incidental findings of the study included the confirmation that Brits who say ‘Can I get…’ instead of ‘Can I have…’ are ‘on a par with Hitler’, and that all recorded data featuring Geordies remains sadly untranslatable.

This satire article was first published over at NewsThump. Reproduced with permission.

Along with a clutch of suchlike satire articles I submitted to Vocal recently, this was rejected for publication because the word count was way below the required 600. My mistake! Rather than let my piece wash away like water down a drain I thought I'd add a bit of background to each piece and what I think about the article and its subject matter the now.

Asshole, smasshole. Transatlantic differences in the use of the English language is a drop in the ocean of the eternally ongoing, very interesting, very human, study in the social-geographical morphology of the English language. Personally I just find it rather irksome when a fellow Brit says, "asshole" rather than my preferred, traditional, "arsehole."

I would describe myself as a fully badged-up, progressive member of the liberal elite who thinks the world is a great big melting pot we should all add our essence to, but this doesn't mean that I can't want to clip someone around the face should they use the sweary, Americanised pronunciation of anus when we have our own perfectly serviceable arsehole. Hey-ho, maybe I'm the twat... After all, I did write an entire novel - Under Rand Farm,

My novel - available here

which I set in upstate Pennsylvania (excerpt available on Vocal here) under the pseudonym LJ Denholm, using American English throughout. But my defence for this betrayal of UK English is that URF is so ingrained in Americana - the Mom and Pop farms, pancakes for breakfast, yellow schoolbuses, and all that jazz, that it would've seemed a bit pretentious to write the whole thing in UK English. But I was so scared of being called out for using US English that I created the pseudonym, as if it was an American guest-version of myself who penned the book.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm hypocritical, yet like all men approaching middle-age, I possess a highly unpalatable and undeserved righteousness that I apply to my own actions sparingly. As I see fit. So it's arseholes at home, assholes in the States.

PS - It really annoys me when a Brit in Britain asks,

"Can I get a coffee/Coke/whatever..?"

- Yeah. Okay. But you will also get a slap for not saying, "May I have a coffee/Coke/whatever."

You arsehole.

JS Harding is a novelist and humour writer who has written for BBC Comedy and NewsThump. His psychological thriller, Under Rand Farm, written under the pen name LJ Denholm is available via Amazon, while his forthcoming humour novel, The Good Dr Grevaday? is slated for release in early 2022.

satire
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About the Creator

jamie harding

Novelist (writing as LJ Denholm) - Under Rand Farm - available in paperback via Amazon and *FREE* via Kindle Unlimited!

Short story writer - Mr. Threadbare, Farmer Young et al

Humour writer - NewsThump, BBC Comedy.

Kids' writer - TBC!

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