Conference thebay::joyoflex

124.0. "On Farting" by BABEL::SAVAGE () Mon Dec 09 1985 15:53

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  The following article (slightly abridged by me) was written by 
  Michael Kimball an elementary school music teacher from Maine, and
  first appeared in the summer of 1982, in a magazine called the "The
  CoEvolution Quarterly."  I know not of the exact whereabouts of the
  author or the editor (having been simply handed a faded photocopy by
  person unknown) so I haven't tried to get permission for this
  distribution.  The text is very long for this file, so you should
  'extract' before reading: 
                          
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      '...[the] piece you're reading is a strong candidate for the 
  definitive modern work on intestinal gas and its socio-scientific 
  place in the world.

  'Fart, itself, is considered vulgar and unacceptable by our diction-
  aries.  Flatulence, an acceptable word, is defined: "The presence of
  excessive gas in the digestive tract."  But who cares about it, 
  really, when it's still in the body?  The word flatulent is an
  adjective describing the condition of having excessive gas in the 
  digestive tract.  Flatus, gas generated in the stomach or intestine, 
  is another noun.

  '...here's an excerpt from a letter defending the word fart, a 
  breath of fresh air as it were, written by a Dr. Robert J.L. Waugh 
  to the New England Journal of Medicine: "...such awkward phrases as
  passed flatus or excreted gas are always used in instead of farted.
  And a fart - as a noun - can be visualized on X-ray."

  '...others in the medical profession, would-be etymologists...
  weren't quite ready to accept the verb/noun fart.  One suggestion
  for a better verb was crepitate.  Now, crepitate means literally, 
  "a creaking or rattling sound," and may be fitting, albeit conde-
  scending, for older folks; but it's certainly not the universal verb
  we need.  How about exogust?  Actually, that's not a bad noun, but 
  it makes a fairly awkward verb.  Boomerate?  A good British-type verb
  for a certain genre of fart, but overstated in most cases.  

  A logical entry was flatulate; the only drawback is the pomposity of
  its three syllables (or four, as in, "Who flatulated?").  Another  
  one was B.M. burp.  I hate that one.  It's lewd and it's tasteless. 
  Exmeteorate?  Sounds like what Jor-El used to do before Krypton 
  exploded.  Then there was gaseous intestinal discharges, and an 
  entry from Harvard Medical School for deflate as both "pleasing to 
  the ear and etymologically satisfying."  Not bad, but we might stop
  and consider the reputations of balloons and tires.  And, finally,
  someone humorously suggested the term flatus advance by rectal 
  transport, or its acronym, FART.

  Fart, for me, says it all.  It's derived from the Greek word perdix,
  meaning partridge, a bird that makes a sharp, whirring sound when 
  flushed.  The root, perd, easily changed to pherd, then to the more
  staccato Germanic fertan, then to fartan in Old English, and finally 
  to its present refinement, fart.

  Fart is unpretentious, simple, and above all, onomatopoetically 
  right on target - especially here in New England, where a dialec-
  -tical pronunciation is closer to faaht, which is pretty darn close
  to the real sound (a little off target west of the Mississippi;
  though, not even native Californians roll the R when they farrt).

  The dead bullseye, onomatopoetically speaking, of course, is the 
  children's word poop, from the noun poopyhorn.  This is easily
  demonstrated by tightly pursing the lips and expelling a short burst
  of wind through them.  Society, however, chooses to leave poop
  behind in the nursery of baby words such as doo-doo, pee-pee, 
  bum-bum, nay-nay, and mousie-with-(or without)-the-hat.

  Fart also tops all other countries in onomatopoetics.  In Russia, 
  you don't fart, or even poop.  You {word with eighteen Cyrillic 
  characters}, and if that's onomatopoetically satisfying, it must be
  physically jarring.  In Germany you furz...  A fart in Italy is 
  flato...  In Paris, they pet, a neat little verb, when you think 
  about it - pet - well fitted to the cosmopolitan Parisian and to the
  villager alike.

  It's no surprise, really, that France would be right up there 
  contending in fart linguistics.  After all, she gave the world Le
  Petomane, the greatest exponent of the "pet" that ever lived.  Le
  Petomane (his real name was Joseph Pujol) rose to fame and fortune 
  on the stage of the Moulin Rouge in late nineteenth century Paris,
  where at the height of his unusual career he was earning more than
  double the box office of his celebrated contemporary, Sarah 
  Bernhardt.  Pujol's remarkable talent was his ability to inhale and
  exhale fresh air through his anus, an odorless performance of music,
  mimicry, and other dubious feats such as blowing out candles from 
  two feet away.  (Naturally, if his gusts were gaseous, he would have
  torched the people in the good seats.)

  Decked out in a red coat, white bow tie, and gloves, and sporting 
  black satin breeches, Pujol's most popular routines were his amazing
  imitations: "The one...a little girl...; this...the mother-in-law;
  this...the bride on her wedding night; this...the dressmaker tearing
  two yards of calico" (a ten second rip that was reportedly an 
  uncanny imitation).  Other standards in his popular routine were, of
  course the sounds of thunder and ("Gunners, stand by your guns! 
  Ready - fire!") canons.

  Le Petomane not withstanding, humans have taken remarkably few 
  strides through the ages in understanding, let alone accepting,
  the fart.  Way back in 400 B.C. Hippocrates wrote in his Book of
  Prognostics: "It is best when wind passes without noise, but is it 
  better that flatulence should pass even thus than it should be 
  retained; and when a man does pass thus, it indicates either that 
  the man is pain or delirium, unless he give vent to the wind spon-
  taneously."  Delirium?  Perhaps that is why, even 2000 years later,
  proper Victorian ladies would swoon dramatically if an audible fart
  sneaked out past the rustling of their bustles.

  Insanity and drunkenness have also been singled out.  In Chaucer's
  Canterbury Tales, the miller claims, "First, I want to declare that
  I am drunk; I know it from the noise I'm making...."  And in 1577
  another Englishman, Hugh Rhode, wrote in his Booke of Nurture and 
  Schoole of Goode Manners: "Be not lowde where you be, not at the 
  table where you syt; Some men will deems thee dronken, mad, or else
  to lack thy wit."

  Inevitably, the lowly fart became the object of breezy underground 
  satire.  In 1722, in the tenth edition of anonymous author's pamphlet,
  The Benefit of Farting Explained, was printed, "Wrote in Spanish by
  Don Fart in Hando, translated into English by Obadiah Fizle."  And
  Mark Twain, in 1890, wrote a privately printed parody which was 
  dubbed by fans "A Fart in Queen Elizabeth's Court."

  The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, indeed, proved dark years 
  for the fart, knocking it down the social ladder to the bottom rungs
  of acceptance.  It had become the object of street slang and 
  derision.  A parasite was now called a fart-sucker;  one's footman 
  or valet, his fart-catcher.  Trousers were your farting crackers.  
  In Ireland, your jaunting car was a farting-trap, probably a sly dig
  to the horse that pulled it.  And if the horse became restless and
  began walking in circles, he was "like a fart in a colander" - that
  is, until the later part of the nineteenth century; then he was 
  "like a fart in a bottle."  If you "couldn't trust your arse with a 
  fart" you had diarrhea, same as if you "let a brewer's fart, grains
  and all."

     . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  It wasn't until 1976 that serious attention was finally given to the
  fart.  In Minneapolis, a Dr. Michael D. Levitt, professor of 
  medicine at the University of Minnesota Hospital and Associate Chief
  of Research of the Minneapolis Veterans Administration (and probably
  the world's leading authority on the fart), was contacted by a 
  28-year old man who complained that his excessive gas was ruining 
  his sex and social lives.  Dr. Levitt and his associates took the 
  man's case and in the process of treating him made several important
  observations concerning the fart, which they detailed in a paper 
  entitled "Studies of a Flatulent Patient" (New England Journal of 
  Medicine, July 29, 1976).

  In the article, the doctors pointed out that the fart is composed of 
  five gases:  hydrogen, carbon dioxide, methane (methane is inexplic-
  ably produced by only a third of the population, and it is this lucky 
  group that has floating feces), and smaller amounts of oxygen and 
  nitrogen.  The oxygen and nitrogen accumulate in the intestines when
  air is swallowed, while hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and methane are 
  produced in the large intestine as the body's last resort in its 
  digestive process....
  Undigested foods...are [mostly] complicated sugars that cannot be 
  absorbed by the small intestine, such ... sugars [are] found in
  cabbage, radishes, and apples;  it is the bacteriological breakdown
  of these sugars in the large intestine which produces gas, giving us
  the fart, with all its thrust and characteristic odor.

  The doctors found further that the average 28-year old man farts 14
  (plus or minus 5.6) times a day, quite a bit less that the unfortu-
  nate man who originally contacted Dr. Levitt.  By his own flatograph-
  ic estimates, he had been averaging 35 farts daily for two years.  
  Dr. Levitt performed a flatoanalysis of the man's gas and found it 
  was 70 percent hydrogen, indicating intraluminal production (that is,
  produced by the lower intestine).  Sugar was the suspect, specifically
  the lactose found in milk.  So to test that suspicion, the patient 
  was ordered to drink nothing but milk for two days.  Sure enough, on
  the second day he nearly exploded, farting an incredible 141 times,
  including a four-hour roll of 70 blasts, a probable world record!

  Bizarre as it may seem, surgical patients with gas actually run the
  risk of exploding.  Anyone who has ever struck a match to a fart can
  testify to its flammable properties, but when the gas is hydrogen,
  trapped in an intestine, look out.  Dr. Levitt tells of a surgeon 
  who was cauterizing a rectal polyp on a patient when a spark touched
  off the patient's intestinal gas.  The explosion blew the doctor   
  backward into the wall, jammed the patient's head into the table, 
  and ripped open six inches of his colon.  Fortunately, the doctor
  recovered and patient survived.

  You may ask why do I fart more than my neighbor?  Certainly the food 
  you eat and the way you eat it are the two major contributors to 
  farting.  If you are an air swallower - if you gulp your food and 
  drink, or take a breath before each swallow, or if you drink from a
  bottle - you will fart more.  Carbonation and chewing gum will also
  put more air into the fart, hence, more fart into the air.

  The lactose in milk can cause lots of gas in people without enough 
  of the enzyme lactase to break it down.  Other foods which are known 
  gas producers are bran, onions, cucumbers, raisins, cauliflower, 
  lettuce, coffee, and dark beer.  And, of course, the infamous baked 
  bean, which contains the indigestible sugars called trisaccharides.

  Look, if you really want a fartless bean, all you have to do is 
  remove the trisaccharides.  Simply soak the beans for at least three
  hours and drain off the water before cooking.  That'll do it, mostly,
  but for extra fart-free beans, keep changing the water the beans are
  boiling in.  The only problem with this method is that along with 
  removing the gas, you will be removing some nutrients....

  But why do all that to the baked beans in the first place?  
  Everybody farts, right?  ...why the secrecy?  Why the taboo?  Why 
  does society officially not believe in farts?  Why, for heaven's 
  sake, in Emily Post's Etiquette, is there never a mention of passing
  gas?

  It would have been an easy task for her to offer some rules for 
  flatulence;  simply by taking a cue from Steve ("Mind if I smoke? 
  No, mind if I fart?") Martin, and substituting fart for smoke (or
  cigarette) in Chapter 64 of Etiquette, "For Those Who Smoke" becomes
  a workable code of gastric behavior.  For Example:

      FOR THOSE WHO FART

  o  One may not fart in a church or during any religious service or
     ceremonial proceedings.

  o  One may not fart in a sickroom unless the patient himself is 
     farting or unless he specifically says his visitor is welcome to
     fart.

  o  Good taste still forbids farting by a woman on a city street.  It
     should be unnecessary to say that no one should think of farting 
     or lighting a fart when dancing.

  o  Farting is still forbidden on local buses and on some coaches on 
     the railroad.  These cars are clearly marked "No Farting."

  o  Farting is permitted in the mezzanine or loge seats in some movie
     houses, but never in the main orchestra.

  o  Farting is forbidden in most museums, although some have 
     designated areas where it is allowed.

  o  Legitimate theaters do not allow farting in the theater proper.
     It is usually allowed in the outer lobby, and those who wish to 
     fart during the intermission go there to do so.  It is perfectly
     correct for a man who wishes to fart to leave a lady who doesn't,
     but he should hurry back, and not leave her too frequently.

  o  In private situations when there might be some objection, before
     lighting your fart, always ask, "Do you mind if if I fart?"  If 
     there is any in the reply, do your best to refrain from farting 
     until you leave.

  o  A man should light a woman's fart if he is close to her, but not
     if he is on the other side of the table or if it would be awkward
     in any way.

   
  Not bad.  Aside from the obvious gender double-standard, pretty 
  sensible advice, wouldn't you say?  Too bad she missed the boat.  
  Well, I didn't.  We're in the eighties now, a time of radical 
  conformity, and it's high time people had a little farting etiquette,
  so here it is.  Cut this section out and tape it to your refrigera-
  tor, 'cause it's official - and it's modern!

  
  A WHOLISTIC APPROACH TO ANAL-GASTRO-SOCIAL SYSTEMS

  1  Fart is an acceptable verb and noun.

  2  It is generally appropriate to fart in the presence of one's 
     friends and/or immediate family, so long as the area is 
     ventilated.

  3  When in the company of those other than close friends or family,
     simply move to an open ventilated part of the room, fart and say,
     "Excuse me" or if you prefer, "Canadian geese."

     Never fan the fart back at the others unless specifically asked to 
     do so.

  4  It is often unnecessary to comment on the volume, timbre, pitch,
     and or olfactory strength of your fart unless someone else 
     comments.

  5  There is little to be said for the rascal who farts in close 
     proximity to an infant emerging from the womb or a person on his
     deathbed.

  6  It is seldom necessary to fart into the telephone.

Years ago, my sister looked up "fart" in a dictionary and the definition
was merely "an exhalation of gas" and gave an example of a volcano farting.
She also looked up "belch" and found the definition, "an oral fart." I still
laugh to myself remembering how thoroughly grossed out by this she was.

	Jon

Then there's the euphemism 'to break wind', and the big contrast of this
to the similar phrase 'to break ground.'  The statement on the news that
"Governor Michael Dukakis broke ground today at the new museum site" conjures
an interesting image in my mind.

--PSW

    When I was at school (England), one of my fellow pupils looked up
    "fart" in a dictionary. It gave "an explosion between the legs".

    Re .0: The author missed an august reference, namely the edict emperor
    Claudius issued specifically to allow people invited to imperial
    banquets to fart if they felt like it. He did that after hearing that
    an elderly senator nearly died for having desperately restrained
    himself while he was at the imperial table.
    			Denis.

    Supposedly:
    
    A courtier of Queen Elizabeth I of England um, broke wind while
    attending in the throne room (no, not THAT throne room).  He was so
    embarrassed that he left London and banished himself for some long
    count of years.  Finally, he returned to court.  
    
    Elizabeth (the original bawdy Elizabethan) greeted him, "My good Lord
    <mumble>, we are glad to see you!  We have quite forgotten your fart." 
    
          MLR

    "Beans, beans the musical fruit
     the more you eat the more you toot.
     The more you toot the better you feel,
     so eat your beans with every meal."
    
    
     Anon.  
     heard all too often on the playgrounds of yore

    While reading the etiquette section of .0, a quick flash of a sign
    passed before my inner vision:
    
    			DESIGNATED FARTING AREA
                                                           
    
    Has a "ring" to it...
    							Don

An erstwhile associate of mine, deciding that a fart was merely a burp that 
"went the other way", coined the term "prub".

-dave

Re .5:

>    Supposedly:
>
>   A courtier of Queen Elizabeth I of England um, broke wind while
>   attending in the throne room (no, not THAT throne room).  He was so
>   embarrassed that he left London and banished himself for some long
>   count of years.  Finally, he returned to court.  

>   Elizabeth (the original bawdy Elizabethan) greeted him, "My good Lord
>   <mumble>, we are glad to see you!  We have quite forgotten your fart." 

True - this was reported by John Aubrey in "Brief Lives", although I can't
remember who the unfortunate courtier was.

It suggests that Elizabeth I had something of a sense of humour, at least!

Chris.

re Elizabeth in the throne room

That story is very similar to one told in the (unexpurgated) Tales of a 
Thousand and One Nights. Maybe someone got an early translation for Queen
bess and she thought she'd try it out herself on one of her more flatulent 
courtiers?

John

    
    
    re -2.
    
    One hates to carp but in the personal name 2 back the 'the' is
    redundant....
    
    Major Metaphysics.