Would Twelve Mile Circle stoop so low as to devote an entire article to a bad pun? Well yes, I’ve gone there before.
The Operative Phrase
Non-native English speakers in the audience deserve an explanation in advance. When something is said to be half-assed it implies that the effort used to produce it was insufficient, ineffectual, incompetent, lazy, low quality or other words and phrases to that effect. An example might be, “he did such a half-assed job on the roof that it leaks every time it rains.”
I wouldn’t consider the term vulgar although it might qualify as mildly crass. I probably wouldn’t use it in a casual conversation with my mother so maybe that could serve as a guidepost. Those in the 12MC audience with delicate sensibilities might want to skip today’s article.
Etymology
Nobody really knew where the term originated although linguists proposed various theories, some more half-assed than others:
- A tawdry version of half-hearted, except using a different body part.
- An intentional mispronunciation of haphazard
- A tool called an adz used in woodworking; i.e., using an adz only on the front part of a piece would leave it half completed, or half-adzed
- Half asked, as in you only did half of what I asked
- Farmers often use donkeys in pairs; half-assed signified a deficiency
The earliest documented usage of half-assed in print dated to 1863 according to several sources. It appeared in the record of a general court marshal held in the United States.
“Specification 1st — In this that he, the said Captain John H Behan, Company F, 16th Regiment Virginia Volunteers, while on duty in camp on or about the 12th day of December 1862 did use abusive and grossly insulting language to Joseph B Hamilton, 2d Lieutenant… in words as follows to wit: ‘There goes our half-assed Adjutant’…”
Taking Liberties
I went ahead and created my own fake etymology as it applied to geography. Note that people consider a “one-horse town” as small and unimportant. With that in mind I examined another member of the genus Equus, specifically Equus africanus asinus, the donkey (or ass). Thus, wouldn’t it make sense that a half-assed town would be half as significant as a one-horse town?
I don’t have any evidence to corroborate this usage because I made it up. It’s completely false. Also the theory fails in the United Kingdom and various other places where the notion of a half-arsed town still amuses me.
Half Assini, Ghana
The proceeding several paragraphs were an extremely long and tedious lead-in designed simply to provide an excuse. Now I can talk about a town I discovered on a map of Ghana called Half Assini (map). It was located on the Gulf of Guinea on a little jut of land at the far southwestern side of the nation, only five kilometres from Côte d’Ivoire.
The People
According to the Half Assini Development Association,
“Half Assini is the district capital for the Jomoro district, a district in the Western Region of Ghana (Jomoro means ‘fresh fish’ in the local dialect). Half Assini’s real name is ‘Ewianeh’ and is supposed to mean ‘the end of Nzema’. It has a population between 5000 and 10,000. The main occupation of the people is farming and fishing.”
The Nzema inhabit southwestern Ghana and southeastern Côte d’Ivoire. I didn’t know what “the end of Nzema” represented although I speculated that perhaps it marked the end of a territorial border. In other words, maybe Ewianeh / Half Assini was the last town before leaving the Nzema area?
Some History
Two minor historical events occurred in Half Assini. First, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana went to school there for a time. It was a British colony back then; the Gold Coast. His father, a Nzema, worked there as a goldsmith.
Kwame Nkrumah became a student-teacher in Half Assini as a teenager. Educators noticed his talents and arranged for him to continue his education, which eventually led him to the United States and the United Kingdom. Later he fought for Ghanaian independence, served time in prison for leading the struggle and ultimately prevailing in 1960. A military coup d’etat overthrew his government while he went on an overseas trip in 1966. Then he lived the remainder of his life in exile.
The second historical footnote happened in 1913 when the Welsh ship S.S Bakana sailed from Liverpool and wrecked off the coast of Half Assini. Captain Richard Williams drowned during the shipwreck and his body washed ashore several days later. As was custom, those who found Captain Williams buried him in the bush nearby. However the town grew as the years passed and the formerly tranquil gravesite stood in the way of street construction. Developers built around Captain Williams’ tomb, now protected by a wrought-iron fence in the middle of the street. In death he’s become somewhat of a local celebrity of sorts. There’s even a Captain Williams Hotel although authorities aren’t sure why they found four people there recently with two human heads.
The name Half Assini would imply the existence of a full Assini nearby. Alas, that didn’t seem to be the case. We may never know how Half Assini got its curious name.
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