Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 August 6

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August 6

Half/full-assed question

The term "half-assed" has come up in this forum before, but my question doesn't concern etymology directly. My question is, if "half-assing" something is bad, what would be good? Full-assing or zero-assing? Obviously, I'm asking in connection to home improvement and a marriage may be at stake. Drmies (talk) 04:29, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

"Ass", like other vulgarities, can be used as a general intensifier without having a logical extended meaning. That is, the phrase can be idiomatic and defy further analysis or productivity. Half-assed just means doing half the quality of the work, but that doesn't mean that "ass" means anything in isolation here, beyond acting as an intensifier. Another word that works like this is "shit", where you get words like "batshit" and "chickenshit" and "apeshit". "Batty" means "insane" and "Batshit" just means "really insane"; "chicken" means cowardly, and "chickenshit" means "really cowardly". --Jayron32 04:40, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, I like that. Hey, since you released this according to the GFDL, I can use "defy further analysis or productivity" as my motto, as long as I credit you. That's great. BTW, a friend of ours is referred to as "batshit crazy"--so that's really crazy. Thanks for the lesson in idiom, Jayron. Drmies (talk) 04:52, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Since I did want to find a reference to back up my statements above on using vulgarities as non-specific intensifiers (which stems from my musty memories of a decade-and-a-half-ago linguistics class), I did find this article by none other than H. L. Mencken from 1944 which discusses the very same issue; he uses the word "hell" as the vulgarity in this case, but it could apply to any of a number of common vulgarities. The one that comes strongest to my memory is of the use of "fuck" as an "infix" intensifier, as in words like "unfuckingbelievable" and "absofuckinglutely". Wikipedia has an article on Expletive infixation, which covers those specific uses, but following the refs may lead to a more general ideas about expletives as intensifiers. --Jayron32 05:10, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, since the expression "I can't be arsed [to do something or refrain from doing something]" means to have no interest in doing or refraining from doing something, and and a "half-arsed" attempt is half-hearted, it would appear to me that something done with full commitment and interest must logically be "fully-arsed". Of course I can only speak of my knowledge of degrees of *arsedness where <r> is included in the spelling (ironically, mostly in varieties of English that are non-rhotic). As for degrees of "assedness", I can only speculate.--Shirt58 (talk) 09:59, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I remember seeing, a few years ago, a paragraph in a novel in which something (ideas, I think) were described roughly as "Starting as half-assed, and working down into lower ass-fractions". For myself, I can't readily decide whether the expression derives directly from the idea of the uselessness of having less than a whole arse, or by way of the 'be arsed to' construction mentioned above. It might also be a deliberate variation on the obscene-sounding but actually firearms-related "half-cocked". AlexTiefling (talk) 11:19, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

More likely a variation on "half-baked", don't you think? Deor (talk) 23:14, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Or "half-hearted". Angr (talk) 22:00, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

If assed is just an intensifier, then the negative meaning is provided by half, so logically the answer is that full-assed would be the equivalent positive term. Seems like you inadvertently analysed it just fine.  Card Zero  (talk) 21:12, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Cut in line, as opposed to "But In Line."

For some years, I was like, "Why do they use the term, 'quit buttin' in line?'"

Then I learned that the Bloods street gang use "B" in place of "C" since "C" stands for the Crips. (e.g., they instead say, "He was in the bity of Bompton for a bup of boffee.")

So instead of "butt in line," is it really "but in line" because so many people nationwide (or at least my corner of Kansas) decided to adapt the West Coast street gang parlance and sound like the Bloods by putting "b" in place of "c" where "cut" is supposed to be?

But why only for "cutting into" (interrupting) a conversation? And for getting ahead in line without permission? But not for other contexts? (e.g. "We need to but him free from that seatbelt after we use the Jaws of Life to pry open a hole to pull him out of." Or "Kayden, please don't run with scissors pointing up; you'll but yourself in your neck after you trip and need to go to the emergency room.")

Somehow solve this, please. If it's not because we adopted Blood lingo, where did this idea come from? --70.179.170.114 (talk) 05:38, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I have no source, but I'd be amazed to hear that it had anything to do with gang lingo. I believe butt is short for buttocks in this sense. I've always thought that when you butt in line or butt into a conversation, you're putting yourself where you weren't invited to be. (physically or not)... Even if it was based on some random gang stupidity, there's no reason for every single phrase to have caught on to their way of speaking. --Onorem♠Dil 05:47, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)"Butting in" is a phrase that is much older than the Bloods and Crips, it has been used to mean "to insert oneself rudely into a situation" for quite a long time. Etymonline has "To butt in" meaning "to rudely intrude" dating from the early 1900s. See [1]. (post EC-reply to Onorem) I don't think it has anything to do with buttocks, rather it has to do with smashing two things together, as in a "butting heads", i.e. as sheep or elk do. --Jayron32 05:53, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Look at this. The phrase is older than some gang stuff. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 06:02, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. That makes sense too. More of a forcing your way. It's not something I'd ever thought too much about...but just really didn't think it could be anything so silly. Thanks for the additional info. --Onorem♠Dil 06:07, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

As others have mentioned, it's "butt" as in "to push or hit hard or roughly with the head", per http://www.chambersharrap.co.uk/chambers/features/chref/chref.py/main?query=butt&title=21st . I do not believe this "butt" has anything to do with buttocks. 86.129.16.55 (talk) 01:55, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

The two terms are not synonymous. You can suggest to a woman with a crying baby that she cut in front of you. You can't suggest she butt in front of you. It wouldn't be butting. μηδείς (talk) 02:04, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

It is easy. To 'BUTT' something is to hit it. you BUTT into the queue, i.e. you HIT into it. it makes sense.

whose communication is more crippled?

The Reference desk is not a forum for speculation. Looie496 (talk) 15:28, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Suppose that there are two gangs, B's and C's. The b's pronounce all words starting with a "c" to start with a "b" instead, to show their spite for the C's. Meanwhile, the c's pronounce all words starting with a 'b' to start with a 'c' instead, to show their spite. Whose communication is more crippled as a result? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.99.254.208 (talk) 08:25, 6 August 2012 (UTC) I'd link to Monty Python's famous Travel Agent sketch but I fear a copyvio, so instead I'll say "look it up yourself, you silly bunt" --TammyMoet (talk) 08:46, 6 August 2012 (UTC) Those changes are really not phonologically plausible (i.e. not observed to occur in real languages according to historical linguistics research). However, looking at it abstractly as a matter of phonemic distinctive contrasts (i.e. numbers of minimal pairs and such), the amount of neutralization is exactly the same in both cases... AnonMoos (talk) 15:23, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

tones in hist.ling.

If you study historical linguistics you see a lot of formulas like

“ k > ts / _iV ”

where the part after the slash is a conditioning environment: the sound change shown (from Vulgar Latin) occurs only before /i/ and another vowel. It occurs to me that I've never seen an example in which tone is part of the condition. Is that because the books I've read are in English, intended for readers unlikely to be acquainted with phonemic tone, or are such conditional changes rare in fact? —Tamfang (talk) 22:16, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

The rise of tones themselves usually comes from a loss of prefixed or final consonants. One good place to look for tones conditioning historical changes might be the Oto-Manguean languages. The Mixtec language has a really exotic phonology from an Indo-European standpoint. But I haven't studied it other than buying a grammar to peruse when I met some Mixtecos and heard them use it as a secret tongue. μηδείς (talk) 22:25, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, a google scholar search of ["tone-conditioned" "sound change"] brings up various Oto-Manguean languages and Mixtec in the fourth result. μηδείς (talk) 22:29, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not a historical linguist myself, but I'm pretty sure if you look at Chinese tone sandhi or at the tone systems of various Chinese languages and dialects and how they relate to Middle Chinese or Old Chinese, you will see rewrite rules like this involving tone. I feel like I have seen them, although I can't think of references off the top of my head. rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:51, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I too have seen them, but didn't mention Sandhi since they don't result in a permanent change of the underlying form. In any case, they are written conditionally based on tone. μηδείς (talk) 05:55, 7 August 2012 (UTC)