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The best thing for the inside of a man is the outside of a horse. Old Alberta ranch hands swear by this cowboy truism. A variant was one of the catchphrases of American cowboy star and humorist Will Rogers: “The outside of a horse is good for the inside of a person.” The same grizzled riders tell you they want to die in the saddle or die falling off their horse. A smidgeon of clinical evidence from doctors supports the contention that horse-riding is good exercise, as long as you don’t carry an osteoporotic spinal column, as long as you don’t have rider’s butt. Rider’s Butt This Alberta ranch phrase, also called rider’s bum, is coccygeal tendonitis. Your coccyx (common pronunciation: COCK-sicks) is your tailbone, your ass bone, the last little triangular wedge of a vertebra at the end of your spinal column, a tiny bone formed from four or five even smaller rudimentary vertebrae.
The tailbone can get bumped and bruised riding a horse or sitting for too long during a motorboat ride, hence one of its other everyday names: motorboat bum. There are several jawbuster jargon terms from medical vocabulary to describe this pain in the region of the tailbone: coccygodynia, coccyalgia, coccydynia, When painful inflammation occurs after a hard day’s ‘writhing,’ as one older cowboy referred to all day in the saddle, the tendons that attach to, help support and keep in place the tailbone swell. Swollen, inflamed tendons are at risk of rupturing, so galloping over hard prairie with rider’s butt is exceedingly stupid. Ruptured tendons hurt much more than lightly pulled tendons. Healing lymph, a liquid that causes some of the swelling, may also induce pain when the swollen tissue around the tailbone presses on nearby spinal nerves. Rest is the best therapy. Sufficient perhaps will be a few lazy days in the bunkhouse rereading some good, energetic Alberta fiction like Robert Kroetsch’s The Studhorse Man.
Ornithological Extra Word Fact about your Coccyx In languages all over the world, including English and Greek, humans name some animals by their characteristic sounds. In English coot is such a bird name, imitating that bird’s cry as heard by an early speaker of the language. In Old English cu was the echoic word for cow. It’s reasonably certain that cu (coo) was an early Teutonic version of moo! To the ancient Greeks the sound made by the cuckoo bird was kokkuks! Not too far from the English word cuckoo. The Greek word naming that bird for its characteristic call found its way into Latin as coccyx and the Latin word was adopted into English medical terminology. Early Roman anatomists thought the little tailbone at the end of the human spine looked like a cuckoo’s bill, a teeny triangle. That’s how the tailbone received its medical name, coccyx.
Livestock Auction Sayings from Alberta 1. He’s walkin’ around like a stud horse on his way to the mare’s stall. • This was heard to describe a proud horse owner leading his animal around the sales ring at a horse auction. 2. She’s longer than a bad dream! • This is a cattle auction saying describing the length of a heifer. A variant is ‘longer than a wet week.’ Another is ‘longer than a well rope.’ 3. That bull’s flashier than a rat with a gold tooth. 4. Buy this bull and you’ll toss your old one out like a bride’s nightie.
Well, pardners, that’s all the pinto had under the saddle today.
© 2012 copyright William Gordon Casselman * The title graphic is "Don Quijote" by José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913), Mexican master engraver and illustrator extraordinaire.
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A Great New Review of My Latest Book!October 26, 2011 Welcome to the Enchanted Forest By WB Johnston This review is about Bill Casselman’s latest e-book about words: Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik: A Word Lover’s Guide to the Weirdest, Wackiest, and Wonkiest Lexical Gems (Kindle Edition) “Wade Davis, lately of National Geographic, once described each living language as “an old-growth forest of the human spirit.” Once you decide to enter the kleptomaniacal woods of our mother tongue, what you need is more than a tour guide. This is no Disney-fied ‘keep-your-hands-inside-the-car-at all-times’, point A to point B, clear-cutting mining of language. You, here, are in the hands of Sir William of Cassel, a genuine shaman modestly posing as a simple lover of words. Leave it on your desk at work and trust that someone will riffle through it when you are out at lunch. Shamans are magicians of the highest order. The work of their hands and hearts is game-changing. Or, hey, put it on your Kindle and just feel comforted that you can wander back out into the forest with Bill even in the middle of a boring lecture. (Casselman replies: Thank you so much, Dr. J., for the kudos. )
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Jenni French of San Fancisco, California writes on her blog “My Corner of the Universe” for March 19, 2011: Casselman, Bill. Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik: A World Lover’s Guide to the Weirdest, Wackiest, and Wonkiest Lexical Gems. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 2010.
And the author has quite a way with words, so I have found myself rereading many sentences in this book and slowing my progress through it. My current favorite sentence is found in a discussion of dog hybrid breed names: “What a revolting concatenation of cutesiness and smarmy nomenclatorial treacle parading under the name of canine hybrid breed names” (19). I’m sure I’ll have another favorite sentence in a day or two. This book is just that good and just that entertaining.” (Author Bill Casselman replies: “Thanks, Jenni!” ) Just a reminder that this book contains my ALL-NEW word esssays, none of which are available anywhere else in print or online.
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Cindy Lapeña on her blog “Creativity Unlimited” of July 19 ,2011, writes: Posted by mimrlith in 365 Things to Look Forward to. 19. Starting a book To a certified bibliophile like me, a.k.a. bookworm, one of the most exciting things to look forward to is to start reading a new book. In fact, sometimes the prospect of starting to read a new book is so exciting that I have to hurry to finish the book I am currently reading, just so I can start a new one. If there’s one thing I can’t resist, it’s a book, especially if it promises to be a good one. Of course there are certain books I just won’t touch or be seen with, but at the risk of being hung by my thumbs by fans of such literature, I will not mention any genres in particular. . . Seeing a book with a title that totally captivates me, like Where a Dobdob meets a Dikdik (yes, that is a book title!) has me so worked up, I just can’t wait to dive in. I imagine all sorts of deliciously fancifully outrageous words with a title like that. Is it obvious? I just love books on words. You won’t believe how many dictionaries I own. Or books on lexical oddities and other lexical explorations. Yes, I am a logophile of sorts. I love the new words I pick up from new books. I relish finding out the meanings of all manner of words and phrases and expressions. What could be more fun?” (Replies author Bill Casselman: Please scroll to bottom of page or click here to link to a free seven-page preview of my new book, Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik.
Testimonial Email
Thursday, February 3, 2011 Dear Mr. Casselman, . . . I revisited the paraprosdokian page, and have finally quit laughing again at “Casselman’s Conclusion.” You were not unkind to the “profligate prof-lets.” During my years as an acquisitions editor, in rejection letters I often quoted Prof. Moses Hadas, classicist at Columbia University, who wrote a young scholar in response to having been sent the prof-let’s first book, “Thank you for sending me your book. I will waste no time reading it.” Thank you,
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and coccyodynia. –Algia and –dynia are suffixes in medical vocabulary that both signify ‘pain,’ from Greek words algia ‘a feeling of pain’ and odyne ‘pain.’ A drug or thought or object that relieves pain is an anodyne, from Greek a ‘not’ + Greek n (often called “euphonic nu” because a letter n is inserted in the word to make it easier and quicker to pronounce) + odyne Greek ‘pain.’ 
