Please Stop Calling It a Flank

I'm going to rant briefly. I don't know if anypony is even reading my blog posts yet, so this seems like a good time to rant: if I make a fool of myself, at least nopony's listening.

I know some bronies out there actually know something about real horses because I occasionally see comments from bronies who talk about their horses, but I still get the impression that the average brony has never been within a mile or so of a genuine equine.

Not long ago, I read a story, pretty good overall, in which Twilight Sparkle, meeting a human for the first time, asked him if it were true that humans have only one stomach.

Somepony is getting horses mixed up with cows. Cows have a four-chamber stomach (not really four stomachs). Horses have one chamber, just like you and me.

But now to get onto the real point of this post:

Please, please stop using the word "flank" as a general term for a horse's hindquarters.

The flank is on the front of the horse's rear leg where the hip meets the barrel. It does not mean "hindquarters." And it most certainly does not mean "buttock." A horse's buttock is actually called--guess what?--the buttock. Also, you need to stop talking so much about pony butts anyway. That's getting kind of weird.

You should already know that the flank is on the side of an animal, not the back. Think about it: when one army is flanking another, what is it doing?

Type "points of a horse" into Google and you will instantly get a slew of easy guides to equine anatomy to help you with your fan fiction writing. When I write MLP fan fiction, I usually have a horse anatomy chart open and refer to it frequently. This fact isn't yet apparent in "Princess Trinity," but I have another story called "To Woo a Princess" that will appear soon (after I give its first chapter the rewrite it desperately needs) in which I use equine anatomy terms frequently because it contains a lot of close combat.

Comments

[Magnum-opuS]

okay....I never used the term to begin with,love.

[D G D Davidson]

114032

Well, I didn't mean you specifically, of course!

[Eric M Ryan]

I have to admit I've probably confused flank with backside on more than one occasion , but I am also an equine anatomy noob (on which, thanks for the head up on those guides, that's one less rookie mistake for me!). However, much of my current concern with flanks is blank flanks, for the AB fanfic.