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Inspirational Reads

Asses are Made to Bear...

October 4, 2009

...quoth the Bard. It's true. In Taming of the Shrew, upon the initial meeting of Petruchio and Katharina (Kate), Petruchio invites Kate to come sit upon his lap. The Bard was such a dirty old man. Anyway, Kate responds to Petruchio's request with "Asses are made to bear, and so are you." I'm sure there was a little of that famous Shakespearean double-speak going on here, where Kate was not only pointing out that Petruchio was an ass, but he was also telling us how we should see more shapely buttocks flaunted in the open.

This all brings us to today's word. It's one of my favorites. I'm sure you've heard it before, maybe even used it. I know I've written it here. I must thank my friend, Asian Jim, for teaching me this word. This one is for you, Asian Jim (if you still read this).

callipygian: "kal-uh-pidge-ee-uhn" adjective pertaining to or having beautiful buttocks.

This word comes from Greek, kalli meaning "beautiful" and puge meaning buttocks. It shows up in the middle of the seventeenth century (so, well after Shakespeare tells us that asses should be bared) and originally was used in reference of a statue of Aphrodite, the Ancient Greek goddess of love, beauty and desire. In Rome, they called her Venus.

You can probably see why this is one of my favorite words in the English language, and why I thank Asian Jim so much for teaching it to me. Thanks, buddy.

Anyway, I know exactly where this is going. There's a certain young princess that will have her "callipygian curves" described, most likely in reference to the spray of sea water on her garments, causing them to cling tenaciously to her skin. That is, if she's wearing clothes at all at that point. I haven't decided yet. We'll see.

So, the next time you see some attractive young woman walking down the street with "Juicy" written across her ass, now you know how to describe it--providing she's over 18, that is. Pervert.

But wait...there's more!

In the course of looking up the etymology of the word, I stumbled across a few others, and I just have to share them with you. Mostly because I'm twisted like that.

The opposite of callipygian is cacopygian, meaning "having an ugly buttocks", coming from kakos meaning "bad, evil" and the aforementioned puge.

A related form is steatopygous, meaning "having a prominent or fat buttocks", this time coming from stear or steat, meaning "tallow, fat" and puge.

And then there is possibly my new favorite word that I've learned in the past ten minutes, dasypygal, meaning "having a hairy buttocks", coming from Greek dasus with the meaning of "hair, dense" and puge. Awesome.

So, there you go. Four words for the price of one, all of them related to your sweet ass. Wait a second. I'm not sure if this word exists or not, but I'm going to try and take credit for coining glycopygian, meaning "having a sweet ass" (glycys being Greek for "sweet").

Words are awesome.

13 comments:

The Peach Tart said...

steatopygous, meaning "having a prominent or fat buttocks", this time coming from stear or steat, meaning "tallow, fat" and puge.

dasypygal, meaning "having a hairy buttocks", coming from Greek dasus with the meaning of "hair, dense" and puge. Awesome.

I'm so stealing these two new words. I know just the people that they pertain to. Won't I look smart when I call them those words. Thanks for the education.

Scope said...

I have noticed that when Cora is around, I do need to up my metformin does.

Glycopygian, to be sure.

See what I did there? Science!

mike said...

yeah, I will be using Glycopygian as often as possible. I hope there are enough sweet asses around me to try it out.

Elliott said...

Callipygian has been part of my lexicon for many years, but glycopygian has now been added.

Thanks!

Jill Pilgrim said...

Dude, my life is truly richer as a result of reading your blog. I look forward to working this into my daily vocab.

Sass said...

I dub myself...

Glycopygian.

I'm arrogant like that.

Elliott said...

I, for one, demand photographic proof.

Lisa-tastrophies said...

I always knew you were an ass-man :-)

JenJen said...

Sometimes I tire of being so sticky sweet, but somebody's gotta do it.

Cora said...

Cool! Now I can sound all worldly and smart and shit the next time I feel like calling someone "sweet cheeks" ~ glycopygian it is.

;-)

Now please excuse me, I need to go apologize to Scope. It appears I've been complicating his Diabetes. *guilt*

Moooooog35 said...

I just concatenate them all and say 'me.'

Saves so much time.

otherworldlyone said...

Yay! New words!

Cool as Folk said...

Glycopygian could work. Definitely.

I like big butts and I cannot lie.