Hey, Grant and Martha! (And other devotees, of course.)
I recently heard someone say "You don't know a burro from a burrow."
Of course, it immediately caused me to wonder if the phrase "You don't know your ass from a hole in the ground" came from that or vice versa.
And who better to ask than A Way With Words?
I don't know either, but I find the parallel fascinating. Parallels, rather.
The burro / burrow observation is an innovation — a brilliant one — rather than the origin. It is most brilliantly realized in the old UPI Stylebook.
burro, burrow A burro is an ass. A burrow is a hole in the ground. As a journalist you are expected to know the difference.
United Press International Stylebook (1977, p29)
This delightful association has been pointed out in several accessible venues, including one by Roy Blount Jr. ("Is the Pope Capitalized?", in his 1982 collection One Fell Soup, Or, I'm Just a Bug on the Windshield of Life, p. 84). The UPI Stylebook has dropped the perfectly faceted diamond third sentence, as you can see here:
UPIU letter B
It is no wonder that they continue to exercise their artistic license to omit borough from the discussion.
The expression is older than that (since 1950, with variants much earlier, according to The Dictionary of American Regional English, Harvard, Ed. Frederic Cassidy), and has many, many variations that have nothing to do with burro or burrow.
NOTE: I haven't verified this info in the primary sources yet, but got all of it from credible online secondary sources (while commuting).
I can personally attest that the ass expression was used in the 1960's.
The innovation makes me want to change a list I helped generate in graduate school; role-playing games, Dungeons and Dragons, Swords and Sorcerers, etc., prompted us to generate a pair for each letter in the alphabet. The pair needed a place (preferably, underground) or inannimate object and something alive (at least in its world). Anthills and Aardvarks started the list. Culverts and Chickens could help promote safety in crossing the road. Xanadu and Xantippes came only after consulting a dictionary. Now, Bunnies and Burrows might need to be replaced with Burros and Burrows.
Emmett
Emmett, could we persuade you to share that entire list? 🙂