41–50 of 89 posts
This 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.
The 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 wor…
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.
> 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.
A 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.
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".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
‘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”).
I don't think so. This one had to do with a memorial for someone who was murdered.
The 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 wor…
I first encountered this term while playing Kingdom of Loathing. https://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Asshat which puts it at somewhere in the 2005 or so timeframe when I encountered that term.
I remember first encountering the term on b3ta around the same time.
Is 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 com…
I 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 ju…
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.