Tom's repeated use of the term 'Buttmonkey' inspired this one:
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Lately, the term 'buttmonkey' has been turning up in a lot of posts. It is a little known fact that I have a minor in etymology ('ety' means 'the detailed, and thoroughly researched on the internet, history of', 'mology' means 'words'), so I decided to look up the history of this term... It took me several days of extensive research to learn the origin of 'buttmonkey' but I found that it had a long fascinating history...

At first I thought I had found the first obscure use of the term when I translated an obscure version of the old Greek myth about Jason and the Argonauts from the original greek and found that one of the Argonauts, Thomkius of Broszinium, said Jason

'had the appearance of a monkey's butt'

as he lay dying from mortal wounds inflicted by the cyclops.

However, I was not able to find a clear link from that ancient quote and its current day usage- so I spent a few more days searching non-stop... The next occurrance of that term or anything like it didnt occur until 774- Ironically it was actually a 'Frenchman' that coined the term!

In 774 Charlemagne conquered the Lombards in northern Spain, in the after battle celebrations it was customary, as it is in american sports today, to strike the behinds of your 'team-mates' as a form of congratulation.

As the celebrations reached their (inebriated) peak a very drunk lowly foot soldier attempted to slap his commander, Charlemagne, on his posterior- (this was a grave violation of protocol, a soldier of a given rank could only slap butts that were equally rank) Charlemagne dodged the attempt but was FURIOUS at the soldiers audacity.

At first it was thought that Charlemagne would skewer the man where he stood, but then he just laughed and declared Butt Manquai!!... in french this means 'butt missed'

From then on in France 'butt manquai' was used to refer to those that didnt treat their leaders with proper divine reverence... the term lost popularity with the acceptance of democracy in France but was revived and mis-spelled by certain Americans in the 21st century and applied to those that didnt support the actions of their country with unquestioning loyalty...

In French the opposite of 'butt manquai' could be 'butt draguer', as in: "Tom and eb and phill are moral 'butt draggers' "

Isnt history just FASCINATING?!
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The future history of the HZ can be found at: http://www.habitablezone.com/community/messages/373103.html