Sometimes the Butt of a Joke Is Vice Versa

One of the frustrating aspects of my job is that our paper’s quite admirable restrictions on the use of certain vulgar or obscene words prohibit me from using very funny stories that readers often send me.

I myself do not like obscene words and use them only when their absence would leave a blank. Even then, of course, some words may not be used, but one forgoes them reluctantly.

I believe I have argued here before that the common three-letter word for the human fundament is much less vulgar than many synonyms commonly used in its place.

I am perfectly free to say butt , for example, a synonym routinely used in sports stories. Butt has neither the grace nor the historical validity of the word it replaces.

On the other hand the word ass is quite proper in refined British speech. A cad, a man of crude manners, is often described by proper Englishmen and women as an ass--sometimes a perfect ass.

I am reminded of a British novel by Kingsley Amis in which a raunchy clergyman is warned by church elders that if he repeats his crude conduct he will be dismissed. Later, on the dance floor, he slips a hand down under the backless dress of his partner and admits, when confronted, “I felt a perfect ass.”

It may be said that the double-entendre permits that usage, since in that context the word may merely mean a social boor, a breed that is perhaps more common in America than in England.

Reader John Owen sends me a limerick attributed to Ogden Nash, which perhaps uses the double-entendre to its limits:

There once was a lovely young lasse

Who possessed a magnificent asse

It was not round and pink

As you probably think,

But gray, had long ears

And ate grasse.

Whether the conclusion excuses the beginning I do not know. If the limerick does not appear in this column, you will know that it did not.

The fact that the word is essentially harmless is what makes it so much fun. No one is really offended by it.

A far more offensive version of the word, while in common use, is not permitted in family publications. It is a noun; a synonym for the anus. I have received two wonderful stories, in one of which the word is not used, but merely implied.

That one comes from Fred Sherbourne. It tells of two soldiers who are digging a hole on the desert battlefield during the Persian Gulf war. They have been ordered to bury what was called a grenade carrier. When they arrive on the scene they find that the grenade carrier is in fact a donkey. They begin arguing whether the animal is a donkey, a mule or a burro. A chaplain happens by, and they ask him to settle the argument.

The chaplain replies that the animal is an ass, the ass being a common beast of burden in this part of the world. He reminds them that according to the Bible, Jesus journeyed to Jerusalem on an ass.

Later an officer comes by and says to the men, “What are you digging? A fox hole?”

And one of them replies, “No, sir. Not according to Scripture.”

I like that one because it calls upon the reader to supply the forbidden word.

Another story, sent to me by several readers, including Tom Silman and Betsy R. Blatt, concerns a freshman at Harvard who stops an upperclassman and asks, “Pardon me, where’s the library at?”

The senior student answers, “At Harvard, we do not end a sentence with a preposition.”

To which the freshman replies, “OK. Where’s the library at, -------?”

Since there are no clues in the story as censored, the reader must guess at the missing word. It is the same word that is also unspoken in the previous story. If you know the missing word don’t blame me for suggesting it.

And a story that may end the argument about ending a sentence with a preposition comes from my old friend Cecil Smith. He recalls what he considers the best newspaper lede ever written. When Richard Loeb of the Leopold and Loeb murder scandal made a lewd suggestion to a prison cellmate the fellow carved him up with a razor.

A Chicago rewrite man wrote: “Despite his fine education, Richard Loeb ended his sentence yesterday with a proposition.”

And Ed Powell provides a fitting end to the lie-lay controversy, if there is one. A young man in white flannels calls on his woman friend. Her small black-and-white dog persists in putting his paws on the young man’s pants.

He repeatedly tells the dog, “Go away! Lay down!” The dog does not obey. Finally the young woman says, “You’ll have to say ‘Lie down.’ He’s a Boston Bull.”