ASSMAN

The idea for this post is to discuss the presence of the cola/rumpa/booty in society… What a subject! But I do feel it has some importance since there seems to be a great difference of this body part’s importance in different societies. It was not easy to choose the Swedish or English translation for the Argentinean word “cola”. There are namely so many different nuances of the word, but also since it is not so used in Swedish (English as we all know, is not my first language…). The Swedish translation used here was actually the word that we decided on after a discussion among Argentinean and Swedish friends. “Rumpa” does not sound perfect nor 100% correct, but it was the best translation we could come up with.

In Sweden the “rumpa” is hardly present at all I would say. This might be due to the fact that I am a girl and I do not hear what guys talk about in the locker rooms etc. (NOTE I am not discussing the role of women in society in this post, but it will definitely come up later on!) However, judging from magazines’ cover, the “front side” of the women seems to be more in focus in Sweden. We hardly come across “rumpa” neither in the colloquial language nor in society. There are a few hardly used expressions (“ta dig i baken”) that I know of and of course we have our dear “rumpnissar” (“but fellows”: creatures from Astrid Lindgren’s book about Ronja).

I do not know the US society at all, but we do receive a lot of entertainment from over there in which I have found that the rumpa/cola/bottom/booty is present to at least to some extent. Some examples are the constant mooning in teen-movies, generally performed by adolescent guys, Ace Ventura and his “Assholemio” (unfortunately I could not find a clip for this, hilarious, a must see) as well as an extremely funny episode of Jerry Seinfeld about the Assman. When it comes to “bad words” it seems to have earned its spot with expressions like assh..e, kick ass and not to mention the Irish arse… But hey, what do I know? English is outside of my jurisdiction so to speak =)

But what is it like in Argentina then? What role does “la cola” play in the Pampa-society? Well, I can tell you this much: it is a loooot more obvious here than in Sweden at least. Maybe because it is a latin country or maybe due to something else. But (!) I am not looking for the why; I will only describe what I have seen so far… Let us start with what for me as a foreigner was the first evidence of the “colas” participation in the porteño everyday life: the magazines. The amount of “colas” you see when passing by a newsstand in the street is INCREDIBLE. There is a clear “cola-focus” in the male magazines where usually the girls on the cover only show their “cola”, wearing barely a G-string. You can usually only see a glimpse the girl’s face that peeps in the back of the photo. So, imagine what a newsstand filled with these looks like. Or even more spectacular – imagine a 10 square meter advertisement on the wall in the subway… What a sight! This is of course also very visible when you go to the beach – only g-strings as far as the eye can see. I am therefore obliged to buy my bikinis when in Sweden…

So, it seems at least Argentinean men are highly interested in women’s colas, but the “culo” also has a special role, especially in the language. (culo is referring to the part that is “not the buttocks”) In an earlier post I wrote about some Argentinean curses of which many had connotations to balls. There are also many words/curses/expressions based on “culo”. The idea is not to present synonyms to the word culo, instead I will only describe some of its different uses. Now I am back to the awkward situation of actually having to write these down… One way of saying “to have luck” is to say “qué culo”, i.e. literally “what a but”. This same expression can be used in a slightly more “colloquial” manner, using a synonym to culo that has its origins in the word eye (say no more). Culo is also used to express fear. I will not write those expressions here in Spanish (I feel they are too brutal), but their literal translations are: a) to cut nails with your but and b) that it shivers. Another way of expressing the fear is with a gesture with your hand. Please, see the illustration of the letter A in the picture of the finger alphabet, but the fingers are hold upwards while you open and close them. I will probably write something about gestures later on and a better illustration will then be provided.

Enough! Now I have to move on quickly to the “pedo” before I can finish. Pedo means fart. And it is WIDELY used in all situations. Here comes a far from exhaustive list of expressions where it is used: to be drunk, not even drunk, to go very fast, by chance, in vain, etc etc. To end this post I just need to mention that Argentina has its own Assman – a famous soccer player. When I first saw the name on the back of his shirt I got to think of a superhero. What would the superhero Assman have as his special powers? What would his face look like? Well, I leave you with those images =)