128:, Nunberg traces to World War II the origins of the word as an epithet, when it was used as a term of abuse for superior officers considered abusive or self-important. Following the soldiers' return home from the war, the term spread to "movement radicals", and, by the 1970s, to everyday discourse as a replacement for "heel", "cad" and other milder insults. According to Nunberg, the Internet has further solidified the word's place in the English language.
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Nunberg argues that the use of the term generates a sense of solidarity among those who are not (they believe) assholes themselves; directing the epithet "asshole" towards a perceived asshole, though insulting, is tolerated: Nunberg calls one who does so an "anti-asshole, the person who can violate
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characterized the book as an "often raucously funny account of what seems to be
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lies in their remarkable ability to convey the pure joy they take in being assholes without suggesting they suffer even the slightest pangs of conscience."
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as prominent examples), but allows that the left wing has its share as well: "the genius of Rush
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bourgeois conventions and social norms in the cause of punishing offenders".
240:"'Ascent of the A-Word': A look at one of society's favorite swear words"
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Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First Sixty Years
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Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First Sixty Years
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Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First Sixty Years
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Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First Sixty Years
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