why did the forum *** out my a-s-s?
prudish americans?
Until the late 18th century, "***" presumably had no profane meaning, and simply referred to the animal now mostly called donkey. Because of the increasingly non-rhotic nature of standard British English, "arse" was often rendered "***". However indirect evidence of the change from arse to *** traces back to 1785 (in euphemistic avoidance of *** "donkey" by polite speakers) and perhaps to Shakespeare, if Nick Bottom transformed into a donkey in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1594) is such a word-play. This usage was also adopted in America, which is why the word "arse" is not usually used in the United States. The age of Victorian propriety resulted in the renaming of the horse-like animal, changing the name to "donkey" (not recorded in English before 1785, slang, perhaps from dun "dull grey-brown," the form perhaps influenced by monkey, or possibly from a familiar form of Duncan, cf. dobbin) to avoid any improper inferences. Although before World War I they were similar, the English pronunciations of "***" /ęs/ and "arse" /ɑːs/ are now quite different apart from in American English speaking countries, although arse is commonly used in Atlantic Canada, west of the Ottawa river, *** is more idiomatic.