Etymologically “hamstring” comes from “ham” (the fat behind the knee) and “string” (a tendon).    It’s all highly medical, science jargon.  I can barely understand it.

Rene Descartes had a fetish for cross-eyed women.  He claimed the fetish stemmed from his childhood love being cross-eyed.

My childhood love wasn’t cross-eyed, which explains why I have a fetish for girls who aren’t cross-eyed.

Taste buds are not only on your tongue, but also on the roof of your mouth and the top of your throat.

Sometimes I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth so my taste buds can taste each other.

Wisdom teeth appear later in life, when people are “wiser.” 

They don’t actually make you smarter.  They’re just teeth.

The Brannock Device is the thing that measures feet at shoe stores.

I thought rulers measured feet.

That was so stupid.

Until the seventeenth century, hysteria referred to a medical condition in females that was thought to be caused by disturbances of the uterus.  In Greek, hystera means “uterus.”

I think it still exists.

The caruncula is the tiny little pink thing in the corner of your eye. 

It’s probably my sexiest body part.

So, just when I thought it would be awesome to be Priapus (the Greek fertility god of yesterday’s post, who wielded a constant woody), I learned about the medical condition named after him: priapism.  Priapism is the painful condition in which the erect penis fails to return to its flaccid state within four hours, despite the absence of physical or psychological stimuli.

Priapism can create a blood clot in the penis which could lead to impotence or erectile dysfunction.

I’m pretty sure if I were Priapus, I would settle for erectile dysfunction.  At least  that way you could live a normal life.  Or in Priapus’s case, you wouldn’t have to worry about birds landing on it.

Priapus was a minor fertility god in Greek mythology.  He was well known for having a permanent erection.  In this picture, he is casually weighing a bag of gold against his penis.

I don’t really need to say anything else.

The uvula (the punching bag at the back of your mouth) comes from the Latin uvola, meaning “small bunch of grapes.”  It’s the diminutive form of uva (grape).  It does kind of look like a small bunch of grapes.  Or one grape.   Apparently, uvula piercings are starting to become a thing.  But the uvula is hard to pierce because of the gag reflex.

I think people should listen to their bodies.  When you gag, it’s your body saying:  

You freaking idiot.  Do not stick that needle into that uvula.  You are a stupid piece of trash.

…my body’s extremely cantankerous.

Hematidrosis is the rare condition where a human will actually sweat blood.  This can be a response to extremely stressful or terrifying situations.  In these situations, the blood vessels that surround the sweat gland dilate to the point of rupture, and the blood actually runs into the sweat gland and out of the skin.

It kind of looks like a Gatorade commercial.

And it’s pretty badass.

Until it happens to you.  And you get disgusting pit stains.

The cleft that runs between your nose and your upper lip is called the philtrum.  I like to think of it as a face taint.

In the Hebrew Bible, the word “foot” was a well-attested euphemism for the male sexual organ.

Wow.  Impressive.

I’ve been reading a lot about sexual ethics, so forgive me if my past two posts have been in the same vein.  In early theories of how babies are made, semen was believed to carry a homunculus (Latin for “little human”).  This theory of preformationism was prevalent before we understood that both a man and woman are equally important in active procreation.  So, yeah, some philosophers and scientists actually believed semen contained a miniature, fully-formed human.  Once the homunculus was inside the woman, development was solely concerned with enlarging this miniature person.  How stupid is that!  Sounds so ridiculous.

But…if we would go back in time and tell them that semen really contained millions of tiny tadpole thingies… I think that would freak them out more.

“Tiny tadpole thingies” is the terminology they use in advanced college biology courses.  Trust me.

I was perusing an etymological dictionary, and, like an 8-year old, I immediately looked up the word “penis.”  I haven’t changed at all.  I remember when I was younger I would look up the word “sex” in every dictionary I  could get my hands on (if I had a time machine I would go back in time and stuff child-me in a locker).  Anyway, “sex” was always next to some picture of a “sewing machine.”  That led to years of confusion.

As for the fact…well, the etymological dictionary told me that the proper plural for penis is “penes.”

I would hate to be the guy that had a reason to make the plural of that word.  Or would I love to be that guy… 

That’s all I got to say about that.