Travel Blog

If I am ever interviewed by James Lipton I will tell him without hesitation that my least favorite word is "butt." (You may have noticed I didn't use it yesterday.) It is such a hard, abrupt term for something that is soft and curvacious. And there is the unacceptable fact that it takes an alluring part of the human anatomy and has it double as the end of a cigarette.

True, it's usually used in a negative way. "Move your butt!" "Well maybe if you got up off your butt..." But when used lovingly it's an abject failure. Culo has a nice rounded look to it, but the sound is disconcertingly harsh. The French say fesses, which has the appropriate softness. But my favorite is the alliterative Polish pupa.