A campaign is under way to rebrand the US state of Kentucky as a place that kicks ass. How did the once-profane term become so widely permissible?
It commands your attention like... well, a swiftly-directed boot to the rear.
There are those who might consider the phrase obscene. But in the United States, the verb to kick ass - like the adjective, kick-ass - is widely considered appropriate for general conversation.
Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in Kentucky, where a high-profile campaign has been launched to change the state's official slogan from Unbridled Spirit to Kentucky Kicks Ass.
And why not, when both the current American president and his predecessor have happily gone on the record deploying the term?
The respectability of the phrase was surely confirmed by the 2010 superhero comedy Kick-Ass, set in New York, which was a hit in the US and beyond. A much-anticipated sequel is due for release later this year.
If you can put it on the front of a movie theatre, you can say it out loud, says Paul Heacock, editor of the Cambridge Dictionary of American Idiom.
Derived from the British arse, the US version is used widely and expressively to convey a range of sentiments.
Kick ass surely owes much of its popularity to the fact that it is so snappy and direct - an ear-catching, no-nonsense way to describe something that is vigorous and triumphant.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to kick ass is to act roughly or aggressively; to be powerful or assertive.
But it is versatile enough to be applied to any bold course of action, or as a catch-all superlative.
