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Letters posted here are associated with the following article:
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My thanks, Tohosa. Latin is a hobby of mine, although I have no formal training, just what I've picked up. As a writer, I hope to always use the right word, and it's so damn easy to get the almost-right word. Your letter was easy to understand and memorize. Thank you for the errors I can avoid now.
An aureola is a little aura, e.g., a nimbus or halo (as in a painting). An areola is a little area; in anatomy, an areola is small ring of color around a center portion, as the darker skin surrounding the nipple or the part of the iris surrounding the pupil. Pudenda has a nice, stuffy Latinate aura when you want to say "external genitalia," but its literal meaning is "stuff to be ashamed of." Vulva is a neutral (i.e., non-connotative) word for external female genitalia.
