In today’s podcast, ESL Podcast 320 – Micromanaging the Staff, we talk about the verb “to butt in.” Butt is what we informally call the part of the body that we sit on, so it’s important to use phrases with butt in it carefully. 
In the “What Else Does it Mean?” section of today’s Learning Guide, we talk about other meanings of “to butt in,” and also “to butt out” and “to butt heads.” Jeff and I never butt heads while working on the podcast. If you believe that, I have some magic beans I would like to sell you.
Another phrase that uses the word “butt” is: to be the butt of a joke. To be the butt of a joke means that someone else told a joke that makes you look bad or silly, and the joke is on you. Nobody likes being the butt of a joke, especially if they’re just minding their own business (not concerning themselves with other people’s business).
~ Lucy
I’m a mexican studying English in beautiful Chicago (as beautiful as Los Angeles). I have an excellent, American friend. He always explain me some idioms when I practice some expressions that I have learnt from our podcasts. It’s very important to know if a expression is a polite expression or a rude or vulgar one. Lucy, thank for your comment. Sometimes I want to say something funny and, as foreigner, I make mistakes.
Miguel
Hi, Miguel,
It is so endearing to hear you say “our podcasts.” I feel the same way that Lucy and Jeff have not only developed a venue for non-native speakers to learn English but also created a community for us, the students from all over the world to learn from each other and share our cultural experience.
Again, I echo your feeling about this nurturing environment: our podcast.
Oh, about being the butt of a joke. In the states, being a celebrity or a politician increases one’s chances to become the butt of a joke exponentially. One only has to watch the late night shows where the monologues seem to consist singularly of making fun of the public figures.
– Pedro
Hi guys,
Miguel, you are very happy because you are living in Chicago and learning English. I think that it is the best way of learning English. I feel that your English is much better than mine, I have the only way of listening English. It is the ESL Podcast. I am reading English books too, but it helps much less than listening and speaking.
Thank you, Lucy for your explanations, I see now that “the butt” means the part of body we sit on. So I hope that “being the butt of a joke” is not a vulgar expression. If you translated this in Russian letter for letter it would become a vulgar one.
I am trying to remember the translation for “being the butt of a joke” in Russian and I must say that we havn’t a special phrase for it. We may be simply speak (in Russian): “he (or she) has played a joke on me”. But I cannot remember the last time when I might say this phrase in an everyday conversation…