Of course, I laughed at this. My friend doesn't know we've been studying Middle English so the timing was great. I also had no idea that words like "puberty" and "zeal" exist only because we needed English words, so some guy who decided to translate the bible came up with them. It's pretty interesting to think that words can come into existence like that. Obviously, since this is a comic about dinosaurs, I am hesitant to believe how true this might be. So I did a quick Google search for "arse ropes" (you can only imagine my fear of what I would find). I got several Google book results for a book called The Secret Life of Words, which I can only assume is a fascinating read. There is only a small preview, but it says:
"The language of the period seemed at times too volatile to convey the necessary authority, but Wyclif's translations reached a larger audience than any previous work in English. They contain some delightfully graphic terms such as arse-ropes (intestines), and Wyclif is the earliest recorded user of many alien items, among them behemoth, chimera, civility, zeal, and alleluia."
So it would seem as though the wise-cracking dinosaurs are right. John Wycliffe seems to have invented those words, but I am unsure about the fate of "arse-ropes," as I have a difficult time believing that they made it to a bible. But I guess they did. encyclopedia.jrank.org says that "we find the graphic compound" in John Wycliffe's contemporary translation of the bible. It's just amazing to me that such a religious and sacred text would have such a gross and slightly humorous term. All I do know, however, is that I am sorely disappointed that arse-ropes is not an official medical term.
Sources:
http://books.google.com/books?id=3eerb4RTYF8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+secret+life+of+words&hl=en&ei=idq4TeGtLeHz0gGI_OGvCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CEEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=arse%20ropes&f=false
http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/522/Ass-Arse.html
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