OED

Asshole December 21, 1996


My word processor has a dictionary which I use regularly
to compensate for a less than perfect memory. I'd prefer
to have something more extensive than the one provided.
The OED would seem to be overdoing it, but it would be
nice to have something more elaborate than the one
I have. This lack impressed itself while I was writing a
letter to a friend of some 40 years or more. One is not
formal with such old friends so it was that while discussing
the current brouhaha about the young man at Cornell
who had infected virtually every computer connected to
ARPANET, the noun "asshole" suggested itself most
strongly. Later, when checking the letter for spelling,
the dictionary informed me that it was ignorant of the
word and offered me inter alia the option of adding it to
its store of knowledge if not wisdom.

I reflected on the sorry state of the world. I thought about
such matters as the Kosovo-Serbia fratricide, the Chinese
brutalization of Tibet, the conversion of the White House
into a big business lobby, the occasional police officer who
seems to be part of the problem rather than a piece of the
solution, cheap-shot cornerbacks in the National Football
League, and soon came to the conclusion that the dictionary
would be less than useful if it were not included.