The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, including i'jam ⟨إِعْجَام⟩ (ʾiʿǧām, consonant pointing), and tashkil ⟨تَشْكِيل⟩ (taškīl, supplementary diacritics). The latter include the ḥarakāt ⟨حَرَكَات⟩ (vowel marks; singular: ḥarakah ⟨حَرَكَة⟩).

The Arabic script is an impure abjad, where short consonants and long vowels are represented by letters but short vowels and consonant length are not generally indicated in writing. Taškīl is optional to represent missing vowels and consonant length. Modern Arabic is nearly always written with consonant pointing, but occasionally unpointed texts are still seen. Early texts such as the Qur'an were initially written without pointing, and pointing was added later to determine the expected readings and interpretations.

The literal meaning of taškīl is "forming". As the normal Arabic text does not provide enough information about the correct pronunciation, the main purpose of taškīl (and ḥarakāt) is to provide a phonetic guide or a phonetic aid; i.e. show the correct pronunciation. It serves the same purpose as furigana (also called "ruby") in Japanese or pinyin or zhuyin in Mandarin Chinese for children who are learning to read or foreign learners.

The word asshole, a variant of arsehole, which is still prevalent in British and Australian English, is a vulgar to describe the anus, often pejoratively used to refer to people.

The word arse in English derives from the Germanic root *arsaz, which originated from the Proto-Indo-European root *ors — meaning buttocks or backside. The combined form arsehole is first attested from 1500 in its literal use to refer to the anus. The metaphorical use of the word to refer to the worst place in a region, e.g., "the arsehole of the world") is first attested in print in 1865; the use to refer to a contemptible person is first attested in 1933. In the ninth chapter of his 1945 autobiography, Black Boy, Richard Wright quotes a snippet of verse that uses the term: "All these white folks dressed so fine / Their ass-holes smell just like mine ...". Its first appearance as an insult term in a newspaper indexed by Google News is in 1965. As with other vulgarities, these uses of the word may have been common in oral speech for some time before their first print appearances. By the 1970s, Hustler magazine featured people they did not like as "Asshole of the Month." In 1972, Jonathan Richman's Modern Lovers recorded his song "Pablo Picasso," which includes the line "Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole."