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A dozen words for jerk

With his new satirical self-help title, author Martin Kihn counsels us to be more aggressive, and he took his own advice when titling the book: it’s called A$$hole: How I Got Rich and Happy by Not Giving a Damn About Anyone and How You Can Too (Broadway/Random House).

That hook has scored Kihn a Q&A in Newsweek, but apparently the magazine thinks its sensitive readers cannot withstand the word “asshole” unless it’s spelled with dollar signs. Whenever the a-word comes up in the interview, writer Brian Braiker substitutes a euphemism, such as “family-unfriendly word that NEWSWEEK generally avoids.”

To his credit, though, Baiker has some fun with it, using a different euphemism every time one is called for – which is often. Here’s the full list.

  • aggressively un-nice person
  • curse word synonymous with “unbelievable jerk” that begins with the letter A
  • epithet that begins with the first letter of the alphabet
  • buttocks personified
  • human derrieres
  • scatalogical body part
  • a-hole
  • rectal
  • orifice
  • disagreeable people
  • excretory opening
  • scatalogical body part
  • posterior portal
  • the word we have refrained from printing thus far in this interview
  • begins with A, you figure it out

One Response to “A dozen words for jerk

  1. Matthew Gruman » 15 Euphemisms for Asshole says:

    […] Quill Blog. […]

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