[3] In the ninth chapter of his 1945 autobiography, Black Boy, Richard Wright quotes a snippet of verse that uses the term: "All these white folks dressed so fine / Their ass-holes smell just like mine ...".
By 1994, however, vulgarity had become more acceptable, and the word was featured in dialog on the long-running television series NYPD Blue, though it has yet to become anything close to commonplace on network TV.
[9] Moral philosopher Aaron James, in his 2012 book, Assholes: A Theory, gives a more precise meaning of the word, particularly to its connotation in the United States: A person, who is almost always male, who considers himself of much greater moral or social importance than everyone else; who allows himself to enjoy special advantages and does so systematically; who does this out of an entrenched sense of entitlement; and who is immunized by his sense of entitlement against the complaints of other people.
[15] The English word ass (meaning donkey, a cognate of its zoological name Equus asinus) may also be used as a term of contempt, referring to a silly or stupid person.
[citation needed] In 2000, during a Labor Day event, then-candidate George W. Bush made an offhand remark to his running mate, Dick Cheney, that The New York Times reporter Adam Clymer was a "major league asshole."
The gaffe was caught on microphone and led to a political advertisement chiding Bush for "using expletives... in front of a crowd of families," produced for Democratic opponent Al Gore.