Hindquarters - why 25%?

I'd always imagined that the term 'hindquarters' had some relation to the use of the word 'quarter' to mean a part or area of a town distinctive for its special use, in this case for being spanked.

I believe some sport - maybe that American game called football but played with the hands - has quarterbacks. Real football has centre-halves, which sounds a pretty good term for the buttocks. Maybe I should invent a game with the names of the positions all sounding like items of interest to this group.

Cricket, of course, has the terms leg-cutter and tail-ender.

...and archery has butts!

And sailing has a spanker

Well, American-style football also features the terms "tight end," which could be interpreted to mean a trim, well-toned derriere, and "split end," which makes me think of the rubber tip of a riding crop I've felt atop my rear end on occasion (albeit regretfully not recently).

In tennis, I've heard the terms "stinging forehand" and "blistering backhand" employed to describe powerful strokes of the racket... --C.K.

And of course it's not uncommon for commentators to say some contestant or team has had a spanking from another.

Grouse-shooting also has butts and I imagine some Germans are amused by cricket commentary like "a safe pair of hands in the slips".

Two that haven't yet been mentioned for the part of the human body most accepted as being provided by nature for corporal discipline are 'nether regions' and 'lower back'. I find both of these rather attractive because they are under-stated, rather subtle, and highly context driven.

The former, of course, makes no distinction between back and front, and projects the correct image only in the context of conventional chastisement. The latter carries medical connotations that are euphemistic in the same vein as 'back passage'.

While musing in this area I feel mention should be made of the phrase 'back to your lap', which was used effectively by the master, P N Dedeaux in uses such as 'a rather fine back to your lap', a sort of compliment to the area that is about to be the location of chastisement.

Part of the frisson found in the literature of erotic chastisement lies the wealth of nomenclature available for the 'approved' location of a chastisement. It allows any description of the event to be coloured using a broad palette of imagery.

I seem to recall some VIP or other getting shot in the backside (during WW2? - can't remember). The press reported he'd "recieved a wound in the fleshy part of the thigh" - so there's another term for it!

In the Guardian newspaper long ago an eminent Turkish writer who did pieces for them from time to time wrote about Turkish surnames, which were invented in a hurry under the revolutionary dictator Ataturk after the First World War. He pointed out that some were deliberately ridiculous and others revealing: for example, one Turkish Prime Minister was called, in effect, Mr Whisky. Allow me to protest at this illiterate spellcheck which objects to that spelling, which is the only correct one for the Scots product.

After the Turkish article appeared, a Greek wrote in and pointed out that a famed general of the Greek War of Independence had been called, in effect, General God's Gift Bullet-in-the-arse.

"Quarters":

2 breasts, 2 buttocks = 4

I prefer the "hind" quarters every time.