Meetings with Not-So-Famous Men.

Some years ago I attended a party that was graced by a man who said that he was Secretary General of the AAAA organization.  A little inquiry revealed that the full name of the group was the American Association for the Advancement of Assholism.  I brought forth the names of a number of humanitarians and respected citizens.  He averred that they were, all of them, members in good standing of Four A.

Quite a few years earlier, not long after I first came to NYC in 1956, I met a Chinese-American named Wang.  He told me that he headed the New York branch of the White Citizens Council, a far-right group that opposed desegregation.  When I asked how a person of Asian heritage could serve in such an office, he replied that he was only holding down the job until some Caucasian would come forward to take his place.  As far as I know, none did.

As regards the A-word it has always struck me that by comparison with, say, "cocksucker" and "motherfucker," it was ratjher amorphous in terms of reference, and consequently of little use as an insult.  Just about everything has a book nowadays, and so too with this word: http://www.tnr.com/book/review/geoffrey-nunberg-ascent-a-word-assholism-sixty-years