rump n. 1. The fleshy hindquarters of
an animal. 2. The human buttocks (a pious euphemism for "ass").
 The
first dirty joke I ever heard -- overheard, actually, in fairness to my
father, who told it to his friends at an hour when he might have reasonably
expected me to be asleep -- featured a pun on the word "ass," intentionally
confused with "donkey." The grown-ups laughed at a line about a farmer
"sitting on his ass."
That week, I smirked when I mentioned to my mother
something about sitting on my ass. She did not laugh. My father
shushed me. "Rump," he whispered. "Sitting on your rump."
Many years later, I wrote and delivered a 10-minute keynote
address entitled Metaphors of Modern Management. After a solemn
set-up in the form of a parable, the piece turns into a joke with more
than twenty punch lines, none of which would work if I followed my father's
proscription. See for yourself by clicking here.
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