An excerpt from Geoffrey Nunberg’s “Ascent of the A-Word”

Vulgarities aren't the impulsive ejaculations that people make them out to be. Swearing isn't
like sneezing: we aren't powerless to control our tongues, however strong the emotions of the
moment. As Goffman noted, "a man who utters fuck when he stumbles in a foundry is quite
likely to avoid that particular expletive should he trip in a day nursery."

Nor are the words meaningless or even especially vague. In part, that view of vulgarities follows
from a common preconception about slang and colloquial language. We tend to think that slang
words are vaguer but more vivid than formal vocabulary—that they denote less, and connote
more than other words do. Actually, that's not generally true. The highfalutin' word is often
vaguer than its colloquial cousin: most people are a lot clearer on raunchy than on prurient. But
when a slang word is vulgar in the bargain, there's a strong temptation to assume that its
function as an insult pretty much exhausts its meaning. It's an assumption shared even by
lexicographers, who of all people ought to be attentive to nuances of meaning. The Oxford
English Dictionary defines asshole simply as "someone foolish or contemptible; an
uncompromising term of abuse."

That's roughly the same as the definitions the dictionary gives for shit ("a contemptuous epithet
applied to a person"), prick ("a vulgar term of abuse for a man"), fuckwad ("A foolish or
contemptible person. Also as a term of abuse"), and cocksucker ("used as a generalized term of
abuse").

But asshole has a quite specific meaning that distinguishes it from shit, prick, and the others.
When we call somebody an asshole, it's because we've decided that that's the shoe that fits
him best. You wouldn't say that the meaning of the word is precise, but then the words that
express social evaluations almost never are. When you come down to it, asshole is no vaguer
than boor or scoundrel, or for that matter than the notoriously elusive word gentleman.