# Pronunciation of "arse" - is the R silent? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 26, 2014, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333 "2014-02-26T17:20:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/21 "2014-02-27T13:09:01Z")
> [@PaulParkhead](#): > > It’s not that the r sound isn’t pronounced. As mentioned upthread, an English person with a non-rhotic accent will pronounce “ass” and “arse” differently. I’m struggling to think of an English accent that wouldn’t pronounce them differently. As mentioned upthread, I always pronounce it and hear it as rhyming with “farce” ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/22 "2014-02-27T13:11:43Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I’m struggling to think of an English accent that wouldn’t pronounce them differently. > > As mentioned upthread, I always pronounce it and hear it as rhyming with “farce” I agree - the main distinction in British dialects is going to be between ‘arrse’ and ‘ahhs’ ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/23 "2014-02-27T13:39:20Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > I guess until recently I rarely heard the word and associated it with “arse” as opposed to just “ass” with a British twang applied to it. > > Is it pretty much pronounced “oss”? That’s what I’m hearing here: > [Welcome to Macmillan Education Customer Support](http://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/pronunciation/british/arse) The r is sometimes silent, sometimes not, as others have explained. The vowel is not quite the same. Stick your tongue way back at the lowest bit of your mouth, like you were having a dental examination, and say aah, but imagine that your dentist is also pulling the lower part of your jaw forward. That pushes your tongue lower down still, and is the sound in arse. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/24 "2014-02-27T13:57:54Z")
This thread reminds me of a question I had a few years ago about ‘loverly’, as in the song in _My Fair Lady_. American’s sing _Wouldn’t it be lover-ly?_. I don’t recall how Hepburn sings it. If the ‘r’ isn’t pronounced, then it becomes ‘luv-uh-lee’, which makes more sense as a word, with the extra syllable making the lyric fit the beat. (I don’t remember what the conclusion was in the old thread.) ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/25 "2014-02-27T14:11:35Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > “Ass” meaning donkey (and with a short **a** ) is an insult in Britain too, but not nearly as strong a one as “arse”. A (British) _ass_ is a foolish, but mostly harmless and ineffectual person. An _arse_ is a very unpleasant person, one who enjoys making other people unhappy (or, at the very least, does not give a damn if he does so). As I understand it, the American “ass” is somewhere in between. And if Americans want to push the term to its most denigrating limits, they simple add “hole.” Is this second term common in the UK? I’ve always found it to be our most useful all-purpose epithet…one with wide application in numerous situations. ---
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/26 "2014-02-27T14:20:13Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > And if Americans want to push the term to its most denigrating limits, they simple add “hole.” > > Is this second term common in the UK? I’ve always found it to be our most useful all-purpose epithet…one with wide application in numerous situations. You could certainly call someone an “arsehole”. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/27 "2014-02-27T14:27:48Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > This thread reminds me of a question I had a few years ago about ‘loverly’, as in the song in _My Fair Lady_. American’s sing _Wouldn’t it be lover-ly?_. I don’t recall how Hepburn sings it. If the ‘r’ isn’t pronounced, then it becomes ‘luv-uh-lee’, which makes more sense as a word, with the extra syllable making the lyric fit the beat. > > (I don’t remember what the conclusion was in the old thread.) Yes, whoever rendered it as ‘loverly’ was probably assuming non-rhotic pronunciation. You sometimes see Brits and others doing this, overlooking the fact that many people do pronounce those Rs. ISTR that Eliza Doolittle’s singing voice was not that of Audrey Hepburn, incidentally. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/28 "2014-02-27T14:39:23Z")
Meaning rather than pronunciation, but - I recall reading a linguistic comment that ca. 1800 “arse” was the offensive word and “ass” the polite mispronunciation. At some point the reverse came to be the case, at least in US English. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/29 "2014-02-27T15:36:47Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > And if Americans want to push the term to its most denigrating limits, they simple add “hole.” > > Is this second term common in the UK? I’ve always found it to be our most useful all-purpose epithet…one with wide application in numerous situations. Yes, “arsehole” is commonly used in Britain too, but I rather think just “arse” is a slightly stronger insult. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/30 "2014-02-27T15:56:04Z")
Threads like these are always going to be tricky, because a British person will generally think “Of course I pronounce the ‘r’!” even when they actually don’t. I have a non-rhotic (southern British English) accent, and to me “arse” is pronounced identically to “pass”, minus the initial consonant. But I still think “of course I’m pronouncing the ‘r’, otherwise it would be ‘ase’!” ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/31 "2014-02-27T17:03:19Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > Yes, whoever rendered it as ‘loverly’ was probably assuming non-rhotic pronunciation. You sometimes see Brits and others doing this, overlooking the fact that many people do pronounce those Rs. Yeah, I’ve seen that a lot. I’ve mentioned this before on the board, but when I moved to Hungary, I had a Hungarian-English dictionary and phrasebook. The word for “thank you” in Hungarian is “köszönom.” There are no “r” sounds of any sort in it in Hungarian. It was phonetically transcribed as “KER-ser-nerm” in English. I just thought the phrasebook had an unusual way of writing out “ö” sounds. It was only about six months or a year later that it dawned on me: this was a book published in London, assuming a non-rhotic accent, and if I imagined a Received Pronunciation speaker saying “KER-ser-nerm,” it actually gets in the ballpark. I also wonder if that’s how “Göthe” becomes “Ger-tuh” in American English. The German pronunciation has no “r”, and hearing that name in a rhotic accent with a clear “r” just sounds weird and jarring to me. In a non-rhotic accent, that would be a reasonable approximation. ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/32 "2014-02-27T17:25:59Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Yes, “arsehole” is commonly used in Britain too, but I rather think just “arse” is a slightly stronger insult. Interesting. I would have to say that the reverse is true in the U.S. One might, under certain circumstances, call someone an ass in polite company…but never an asshole. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/33 "2014-02-27T17:54:12Z")
“Arseholed” is also used an an adjective to mean extremely drunk. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/34 "2014-02-27T18:33:57Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > I have a non-rhotic (southern British English) accent, and to me “arse” is pronounced identically to “pass”, minus the initial consonant. But I still think “of course I’m pronouncing the ‘r’, otherwise it would be ‘ase’!” I don’t know what rhotic means but I’m from the north-east of England and “pass” is just the same as “ass” but with a “p” on the front. Nothing like “arse” at all. It is a bit of a fools errand to try and label anything as a “typical” UK pronunciation, there’s really no such thing. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/35 "2014-02-27T19:09:46Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I don’t know what rhotic means but I’m from the north-east of England and “pass” is just the same as “ass” but with a “p” on the front. Nothing like “arse” at all. > > It is a bit of a fools errand to try and label anything as a “typical” UK pronunciation, there’s really no such thing. I think southerners pronunciate pass to rhyme with parse, or rather as pahss, like a butler in a period drama, while most of us use the shorter “a” sound. “arse” certainly has an “r” sound in it. And “arseholes” rhymes with “our souls” or “are soles”. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/36 "2014-02-27T19:19:00Z")
> [@blindboyard](#): > > I think southerners pronunciate pass to rhyme with parse, or rather as pahss, like a butler in a period drama, while most of us use the shorter “a” sound. > > “arse” certainly has an “r” sound in it. And “arseholes” rhymes with “our souls” or “are soles”. In many southern British accents (including mine), “pass” and “parse” sound identical. We don’t vocalise the “r” - that’s what non-rhotic means. \ Non-rhotic speakers only usually pronounce those “r” sounds when they are linking to a vowel: “butter” doesn’t have the “r” sound, but “butter and jam” does. And because we don’t differentiate between the final syllables in, say, “butter” and “Diana” when pronounced on their own, we also tend to insert the “linking r” sound after the latter when spoken in combination, even though it shouldn’t be there. Hence if I were to say “Diana and her husband”, a rhotic speaker might hear that as “Dianner and her husband”. \ ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/37 "2014-02-27T19:40:28Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > The R is pronounced in Canada by many speakers, particularly those with strong recent ties to the UK, such as Newfoundland. Such as the expression “arse-foremost”, which means “backwards”… Compare the exactly translated English word “preposterous.” I was pleasantly made aware of this when it is used in invective (here obviously implying sodomy) unleashed on Achilles’ young lover in _Troilus and Cressida_: **PATROCLUS** Male varlet, you rogue! what’s that? **THERSITES** Why, his masculine whore. Now, the rotten diseases of the south, the guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, loads o’ gravel i’ the back, lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, limekilns i’ the palm, incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous discoveries! ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/38 "2014-02-27T19:42:12Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > Interesting. I would have to say that the reverse is true in the U.S. One might, under certain circumstances, call someone an ass in polite company…but never an asshole. As I said earlier , in British English “ass” (which is pronounced quite differently from “arse”, whether or not the **r** is voiced in the latter) is a very mild insult (derived from the meaning donkey), and the strength of the American “ass” seems to me to fall somewhere between British “ass” and “arse”. “Arsehole” is certainly not polite in Britain either, but I think it tends to be used dismissively, whereas “arse” is more directly hostile (though it is a subtle distinction. Informal observation in both countries leads me to suggest that the relative strengths of the relevant insults go something like this (strength increasing to the right, with == representing roughly equal force): **ass (British) –\> ass (American) –\> arsehole (British) –\> asshole (American) == arse** Further research is probably needed, however. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/39 "2014-02-27T20:04:33Z")
> [@blindboyard](#): > > I think southerners pronunciate pass to rhyme with parse, or rather as pahss, like a butler in a period drama, while most of us use the shorter “a” sound. Do you mean American southerners or British southerners? I am a British southerner (as, incidentally, are “most of” the British people), and I most certainly do not rhyme “pass” with “parse”. > [@blindboyard](#): > > “arse” certainly has an “r” sound in it. And “arseholes” rhymes with “our souls” or “are soles”. It may or may not have a voiced **r** in it, depending on accent or dialect, but the important point to recognize is that the **a** in “arse” is ‘long’ (in all British accents), whereas the **a** in “ass” is short. \*Some people believe that our bodies are not really important to our personal identity; we are all really just our souls. \* 😃 ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333/40 "2014-02-27T21:31:06Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Do you mean American southerners or British southerners? I am a British southerner (as, incidentally, are “most of” the British people), and I most certainly do not rhyme “pass” with “parse”. > > It may or may not have a voiced **r** in it, depending on accent or dialect, but the important point to recognize is that the **a** in “arse” is ‘long’ (in all British accents), whereas the **a** in “ass” is short. > > \*Some people believe that our bodies are not really important to our personal identity; we are all really just our souls. \* > > 😃 You’re a British southerner and you don’t rhyme pass with parse? Really? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-arse-is-the-r-silent/682333.md?page=3)