Dump Truck Badonkadonk

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha.

This is Jennifer.

I’m calling you from beautiful Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

I teach yoga on the beach every morning, and we’ve sort of been having fun lately in class coming up with all the words that we know that describe our backside.

And we’ve come up with, I think, 21 words.

And the one that really is curious to me is badunk-a-dunk.

I mean, I know what a badonkadonk is, but I have no idea where that comes from.

Okay, so people are doing downward dogs and you’re adjusting their badonkadonks?

Something like that.

Yeah, I want them to firm up their buttocks, which is one of the 21 words that we use.

Tush and derriere and rear end. Gotcha.

Exactly. Yeah, dump truck. I got dump truck.

Dump truck.

From a different guy.

Dump truck.

Right.

And dump truck, like badonkadonk, is for a particularly, how should we put this, curvaceous and pronounced rear end.

Aha.

Yeah.

So badonkadonk, you’re not going to believe this.

It’s 25-year-old slang, at least.

Really?

Yeah.

There were a couple of songs.

Well, there was one in 2001 by Keith Murray that featured LL Cool J and Ludacris that uses the word.

The line is something like, goodness gracious, good God almighty, you got a badonkadonk girl.

Don’t hurt nobody.

Oh, that’s awesome.

And then Missy Elliott, whom I love, Missy Elliott.

Missy’s got a song called Work It.

And she does a version of it as well.

She says, you think you can handle this badonkadonk.

Oh, my God.

I love it.

Okay.

So a robust, curvaceous backside.

But eventually, it quickly, because it’s such fun slang, it quickly left hip-hop and Black English and entered the mainstream American culture.

And in 2005, there was a huge country music hit called Honky Tonk Badonkadonk by Trace Adkins.

I mean, people who love callipygian bottoms, they know no limits, right?

It’s all types.

Oh, my God.

I love it.

That’s even better than anything that I had imagined myself.

Well, Juniper, can I tell you something else?

The night that my wife and I first kissed, we were at a language conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, sitting around with a bunch of linguists and lexicographers in a bar, and we were doing the same thing.

We came up with a bunch of words for derriere, rear end, hiney, tushy.

Yeah, same thing.

Oh, my God.

That’s one of the things I remember about this night.

These people with doctorates, incredibly brilliant linguists and lexicographers sitting around coming up with words for butt.

That’s what you remember from that night.

I wish I had been in that conference.

Well, it was at the bar.

It was after the conference, after the meetings had ended.

Even better.

And you’re catching up with each other and getting the news.

And that was the night I first kissed my wife.

Yeah, the woman who had become my wife.

I love it.

Oh, good.

Well, thank you so much for taking my call.

I’m a huge fan of the show.

I just love it.

Oh, that’s nice.

Well, thank you.

And have fun out there on the beach.

I haven’t been to Cape Cod since 1983, but my memory of it is very strong.

It is beautiful.

Anytime you want to come, you’ll find me at Chatham Lighthouse Beach.

Every morning at 7:30.

Come join.

I’ll bring my workout clothes.

Okay, great.

Thank you both so very much.

Take care of yourself.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

I’m glad we got all that cleared up.

And if you’ve got a question about language that you need to have cleared up, call us anytime, day or night, 877-929-9673, and you can leave a message.